Digimon Tamers: Vegas
by Rogue2k7
Summary: A year after the D-Reaper invasion, tamers have slowly been showing up around the world. Now, a new team has appeared in North Las Vegas, but it quickly finds itself dealing with anti-digimon groups, other tamers, and a mysterious human. Elsewhere Fic
1. Next In Line

Chapter 1: Next in Line

* * *

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon in any of its incarnations. The original characters in this story are mine, though.

* * *

Diego Guevara looked at the digital field in front of him. He always felt a little apprehension entering places like these, being that they were the focal points from where monsters emerged from the other world, however, he need to deal with the latest in a string of enemy Digimon that have come forth to wreak havoc. This time, it was in the school playground of May Elementary in Las Vegas, Nevada to be precise, and if he didn't want any kids finding a trashed jungle gym for the last day of school, he had to act fast.

"Let's go, Gaomon!" he called out to his partner, a dog-like creature with blue fur, red boxing gloves and an enormous head that had a red scarf above his eyes.

"Yes, Diego!" Hey, it was a start. At least he wasn't saying 'Sir, yes, sir!' or 'Yes, master!' anymore. Still, as the two entered into the field of mist, he thought about ways of getting the Digimon to stop using such formalities. After all, Diego doesn't use sir with his father. Why shouldn't the tamer-Digimon relationship be any different?

When the duo entered the mist, they found a lone Digimon, a green moth with a turret for a stinger.

**Mothmon**

**Armor Level**

**Data Type**

**Attacks: Gauss Powder; Energy Sucking**

Diego tried his usual spiel, a simple request. "We don't have to fight you if you just come with me." The moth Digimon just responded with a few gunshots from its turret that hit the ground in front of him, causing Diego to flinch. "That's what I thought. You want to do things the hard way." Diego pulled a card from his deck box that was attached to his belt. He wasn't a skinny guy by any means. In fact, he was kind of fat, had black hair, brown eyes and was just about average height for his age as a fourteen year old. He was wearing a blue shirt and some grey cargo shorts along with some white running shoes.

"Card Slash!" He looked at the card and slid it vertically, holding the card reader on his red and blue digivice toward him, yelling out. "High Speed Plug-in B!"

With that, Gaomon appeared behind the enemy Digimon, yelling "Speed Bash!" and rapidly punching the enemy and knocking it to the ground.

"Double Backhand!" For a finishing move, Gaomon spun around in a whirlwind, striking the enemy with a tornado of punches. With that, the enemy Digimon disintegrated, its green data floating off into the air.

"Nice work! That's gotta be a record."

"Thanks, master! Uh, I mean, Diego!"

Diego smiled at the blue dog as the mist dispersed from around him. The battle almost seemed too easy. Diego walked with his Digimon toward the gate and noticed a black government vehicle and a man dressed in a black suit standing outside of it.

Diego could only imagine who he was with. "Is there anything wrong, sir?" he asked the man, who was wearing black sunglasses.

"Everything will be explained at Somnus," he said.

* * *

When Diego reached the local division of Somnus , an organization that was meant to be the American counterpart to the Japanese organization Hypnos, actually more of an international counterpart, he got out of the car inside an airplane hanger. Since the local division was inside Area 51, the car windows were blacked out and Diego didn't see anything on the way. Of course, it was in the middle of the night anyway.

He was led to a large room with a map of the world on one side and numerous desks spread throughout. The room was dark with a tint of blue light coming from the computer monitors. This wasn't work hours, suffice to say.

"Good that you've come," a tall figure, this time a white American in his fifties who was wearing a hat.

"How are you doing today, Mr. Beckenstein?"

"Decent. However, I called you tamers here for something important."

That's when Diego noticed the girl on the other side of her room along with her partner Digimon, who couldn't be seen clearly because of the lighting in the room. She had short, red-tipped purple hair with bangs going toward the right, purple eye shadow, lipstick and fingernails along with black clothes, a black studded belt, and a wristband that had spikes running across it on her left hand, though she was actually right handed.

"I'm sure you two have noticed the recent spike in activity lately."

"Yeah, what's up with that?" the girl asked.

"Good question, Marika. As you both know, there have been six bio-emergences in the past six days." Johnny Beckenstein pressed a button on his remote control and the world map changed to one of North Las Vegas. There were six dots. "We don't know who or what, but it seems that someone is trying to break through the barriers into our world. You all know how fragile the barriers have been since the D-Reaper invasion, right?" He pressed another button and it went back to the world map, with mostly blue but also containing some red, along with numerous colors in between. "The red areas are where the barriers are weakest, notably Tokyo, but also New York, Los Angeles and pretty much every major city. Tokyo is by far the weakest, though.

"Most of the Digimon that broke through have been Adult or in your vernacular, Champion Level Digimon. If this barrier breaks just right, we could be dealing with a Perfect or Ultimate in American vernacular."

Diego shuttered a little bit from the thought. There were currently only two tamers working for Somnus , though he did know about a third one who didn't fight. If this Ultimate were to break through, the third would have to help out. "So, how long?"

"From the rate things are going, it looks like we will be seeing a major breach in two weeks."

_Two weeks?_ Diego asked himself, his eyes wide. "That's nowhere near enough time."

"I realize that."

"May I interject?" one of the workers asked, Beckenstein nodding him on. "There's a chance that in the time needed, another Tamer or two may appear. You see, the Digignomes that chose you to be tamers pick tamers for a purpose. For instance, the tamers in Shinjuku were chosen just in time to do battle with the D-Reaper. It may be the same here. Chances are that they will pick the best available to help."

"Which would be who?" Marika asked.

"Any winners of card-game tournaments, those that play the games online, or anyone that develops an attachment to a Digimon."

"Well, I won the last tournament. You won't see me getting another partner."

"Then maybe the runner up."

"I know what tournament you're talking about," Beckenstein said. "My son was the runner-up there. He got a trophy at home for it."

"Then he may become a tamer."

"Listen, I'd rather he not get mixed up in this mess."

"We're all going to be involved sooner or later. That seems to be what the world is headed to."

* * *

Nathan was completely done with his exams, finally. It was the end of Middle School and he was glad to be able to leave it behind for good after today. Of course, he had a couple of friends, but because of certain rumors that were spread about him during seventh grade, he wasn't very popular.

He looked at the clock and noticed that it was just a little bit before time to go. He had less than a minute left and it seemed that the second hand was taking an eternity.

And then, finally, the second hand hit the 11 on the right minute and the right hour. The last half day of school was finally over and, signaling that, the bell rang. He was a blond haired guy with blue eyes and he wore a green shirt and blue shorts. Getting up, he walked toward the door, being mindful of the other kids who were anxious to get out like he was.

Upon getting out of the school exit and going down toward the bike-racks, the one thought that went through his mind was Good bye, Skankston, hello Cheyenne. Skankston wasn't the actual name of the school. Instead it was Swainston, but everybody called it Skankston for obvious reasons much like they called Cheyenne Chey-Town. Then again, this was Vegas.

When he reached the bike-racks, he unchained his bike and ran into his friend, Marcus, a taller African-American student with an orange shirt and some long blue-jeans. "What's up, man? You ready to get this summer started?" he asked.

"Oh, heck yeah, man." With that, Nathan pulled out his wallet. "Ready to go get something to eat and then go to the game shop?"

"Oh, yeah. What kind of cards are you going to get this time?"

"Well, I'm going to have to find a way to counteract the strategies of that girl who beat me the other day."

"Hey, at least you got second place. That was far better than I could have gotten." Marcus unchained his bike as well. "So, what are we gonna do after this?"

"I was thinking of playing that game a little more."

"Oh, yeah, you got that promotional Digimon, didn't you?"

"Yeah. I'm supposed to meet a friend online after he's done with his exams and at home. Let's see how he thinks of his Veedramon after he gets a load of my Dracomon."

"Isn't Dracomon a Rookie and Veedramon a Champion."

"Uh, yeah. Still, Dracomon looks cooler than Veemon ever did."

"Your friend would beg to differ."

"I'm sure he would."

* * *

After lunch at the Panda Express off of Craig and Martin Luther King, the duo proceeded to go straight to the game shop. "Hey, Eric! How's it going?" Nathan greeted upon coming in.  
"Oh, hey," the blond-haired, brown-eyed and overweight cashier greeted back. "What can I do for you kids today?"

"Not much. I was just wondering whether you got the new card set in yet."

"Yeah. There's also a new starter deck. Oh, and I heard about the tournament the other day."

"Oh, yeah. I just got to second place, but it's all good."

"So, what do you want?"

"Well, I'll take three boosters." This was how Nathan spent his allowance: food and cards. Then again, his dad made pretty good money at his government job so he got a pretty good allowance.

"Alright, here you go. Can I see what you got?"

"Sure." Nathan opened the boosters up, checking out some new modify and monster cards. There was one card that caught his attention, though. "Okay, what is this?" he asked, looking at the card. It was completely blue except for a D in the middle with a dinosaur head sticking out of it.

Eric was surprised as well. "I don't know. I haven't seen this kind of card before." He looked it over. "Looks to me like some sort of card for that online RPG or something. Maybe it's meant for the latest computer game or something."

"You have any idea what this blue card does, Marcus?" Nathan asked his friend.

"Honestly, it just looks like some promotional card or something."

"Well, I am going to go play on Digimon Online later on."

Eric thought about the card some more. Where had he seen it? _Oh yeah... _Then again, that was a story for another time.

Deciding they were going to get nowhere talking about the blue card, Nathan decided to ask Eric something. "So, what's your favorite Digimon?"

"I have two." Eric grabbed his wallet from his back pocket and pulled out two cards that were in plastic. "AncientGarurumon and Rosemon."

"Cool. I have Rosemon's card but AncientGarurumon?" How the heck did you get that?"

"EBay."

"Oh, okay, that works."

"Man, those are some cool looking Digimon," Marcus said. "I think I remember hearing that Rosemon's supposed to be like, Lillymon's Mega or something."

"That's what I heard too. I hear she appeared in the games that we weren't lucky enough to get." Nathan looked at his watch and saw what time it was. "Well, it looks like I might have to go, but see you around."

"You bet." As Nathan and Marcus walked out of the game shop, they walked past a heavy guy with black hair. He walked up to the cashier's desk. "Oh, hey, Diego! How's it going?"

"Just dandy. You got any good Tamer cards?" Diego knew he could trust Eric.

* * *

"Okay, ready to go kick some butt?" Nathan asked through his headset. He was sitting at his computer desk and playing the game. He had just agreed to go on an easy mission with his friend since his Digimon was still at the Rookie Level.

"_Heck, yeah, man. We've got to guard the city against a group of Shadramon. You ready for this?"_ his friend asked through the headset.

"Yeah. Ready, Dracomon?"

The Digimon, a green reptile with red horns coming from the back of his head and small red wings nodded.

He moved forward, heading out of the town. He finally reached a barren area with very little around him except for the large stone walls he was in between and a lone Shadramon. "I'll take down this Shadramon over here while you take the other ones."

"_Alright, moving in." _

Nathan looked at the screen and simply slashed a card. "Card Slash! Attack Plug-in A!" he yelled. "Now, Dracomon, Attack!"

"_Baby Flame,"_ the small dragon Digimon yelled, unleashing a red fireball at the enemy Digimon, damaging it. The enemy's health bar went down to a third.

_Man, this is too easy!_ Nathan thought. Dracomon unleashed another Baby Flame attack, deleting the enemy Digimon. Nathan looked at his blue card. _I guess I won't need this, huh?_

Unfortunately, a larger swarm of Shadramon appeared. Nathan was shocked by the sight. "Card Slash! High Speed Plug-in B!" he yelled. He realized he couldn't slash it twice and the Shadramon looked like they were gaining on him, even though he used Baby Flame on one of them. One of the Shadramon attacked him, followed by another. Pretty soon, Dracomon's hit points were in critical.

"Crap!" was Nathan's response. He had only one option: the blue card. "Card Slash! Blue Card!" he yelled, sliding the card through the card reader. He didn't know what it was going to do, but when he slid it, his computer shined brightly in his face and the card reader turned into a grey and green D-Arc.

_Was I not supposed to slide that card? _He asked himself. Slowly, though, the light dimmed, revealing mist throughout the room and a reptilian form falling into his lap.

His only response was: "No way."

* * *

"Now what?" Beckenstein asked in the main computer terminal, which was much like the one at Hypnos with the two chairs on a crane.

"There's a Bio-Emergence in North Las Vegas," one of the system operators, an African-American girl replied. "It's not on the digital fault line, so it hasn't affected the barrier."

"Good. What do you know about it?"

"Very little. It seems to have bio-emerged too quickly to tell anything other than that it was a low-level wild one. Child Level at the most."

"Can you get its exact location?"  
"Unfortunately no," the other system operator, a Filipino girl, replied. "It emerged too quickly to even send a tracer."

Beckenstein grimaced at the notion. He couldn't imagine his son being the one with the Digimon, but he had a sneaking suspicion. He just hoped it wasn't true.

* * *

One eye opened slowly, spotting an unknown face. The last thing Dracomon remembered was being attacked by a group of enemy Digimon. Now though, he was somewhere else and at peace, lying down in a bed in a blue-painted room with a door in the corner, a closet to the left of the door, a computer desk against the wall to the right of the closet and finally the bed he was sitting in against the wall and underneath the window.

"How are you feeling?" Nathan asked. It had been about an hour since Dracomon emerged from the computer. Nathan called his friend from out of town, who didn't believe him and quickly chastised him for ditching him to the mercy of those Shadramon, not even listening to Nathan's complaint about the Digimon ganging up on him. Marcus didn't believe him either.

"_You know, man. You're crazy if you think you've got a Digimon. The only ones with Digimon are those guys who fought against the D-Reaper in Japan."_

Nathan shuddered at the response and then promised to bring Dracomon over the following day. In the mean time, he made the Digimon a sandwich.

"You hungry?" he asked the Digimon, showing the sandwich on a paper plate. Dracomon ate it all in one bite, paper plate and everything.

Dracomon sat up and then swallowed his lunch, looking around the room. "You're the voice," he said.

"Huh?"

"The voice that talked to me, telling me what to do. He helped me save the day."

Nathan smiled. "Yeah. Sometimes I do that." Then he paused. That didn't come out right. "In the games, at least."

"The games?" Dracomon got up out of bed.

"Yeah. I play this online Digimon game on my computer. I'll need a new monitor now that you came out of it and screwed up its components, but that's nothing my dad can't buy."

Dracomon didn't have a clue as to what Nathan was talking about. "So, how big is this fortress?"

Nathan looked at him confused for a second. "You mean my house?"

"House? Oh, okay. So you don't have to fight off enemies that come and attack, huh?"

"Uh, no. In the real world we have security systems and locks that block out thieves."

"What if the thieves shoot fireballs at this place?"

It was obvious, Dracomon didn't have a clue about the real world. "Humans don't shoot fireballs."

"Ice attacks?"

"Humans don't have any special powers."

Dracomon was surprised at that. "You don't have any powers? How did you build this?"

"I didn't. This house was built by construction workers, plumbers, and electricians. They built it from the ground up using their hands."

"Sounds awfully inefficient." Dracomon paused for a second. "Do you have anything else to eat?"  
"Uh, sure, follow me to the kitchen. Beware, my dad's coming home in a few hours and you're going to need to hide then. I don't want him knowing I have a Digimon."

"Your dad doesn't like Digimon?" Dracomon asked, following Nathan out into the kitchen.

"I don't know. I know he had to go someplace during the D-Reaper crisis a year and a half ago, though."

"D-Reaper?"

"You know, a big red blob that destroyed everything in sight."

"You humans are weird."

"Yes we are."

"So, what's this dad thing?"

Nathan looked at Dracomon as he pulled out a can of iced tea from the fridge. _Man, do I have to explain everything to him? Better bring out the dictionary._

* * *

A few hours later, his dad got home. "Hey, dad, I think I'm going to need a new monitor," Nathan said, showing him the smoldering flat-screen monitor that he used as he walked through the door to the garage.

Beckenstein just glared at him. "What did you do?"

"I don't know. It just kind of overheated while I was playing online with Cody. I didn't do anything. I swear."

_So far, no sign of any Digimon,_ Beckenstein thought, and then made himself smile. "Oh well, I guess we can just go to Fry's electronics tomorrow after work."

Nathan smiled. "Alright dad."

"So, how was school?"

"Great. The exams all went smoothly. I may not be going to A-TECH but I'm sure gonna end up with good grades."

"You didn't come straight home and play the game, did you?"

"Uh, no. I ate lunch with Marcus and went to the game shop."

The game shop meant that he got more Digimon cards. "Can I see the cards you got?" he asked, suspecting a blue card.

"Sure." Nathan got his folder of cards.

* * *

Meanwhile, Dracomon was cramped in Nathan's closet. His Tamer just stuffed him in there as soon as he heard the garage door opening. He was not happy. After a little bit, Nathan got him out of there. "Sorry about that, man." He said as Dracomon got out. "Here, you want something more to eat?"

It was a microwaved pocket sandwich. "Oh, gee, thanks." Dracomon scarfed it down in an instant.

"So, what do you want to do?" Nathan asked. "My dad has to get up early so he already went to bed."

Dracomon shrugged. "Beats me."

"You know, Digimon are normally supposed to fight evil Digimon, save the world, that sort of thing. I don't know if any evil Digimon emerged lately, but if they do, you want to go take care of them?"

"Sounds like a good idea to me. So, how long until an enemy Digimon appears?"

Nathan hadn't thought about that. "No clue." Dracomon glared at him. "I've got a lot of stuff to do in the mean time, though, so we won't be completely bored. It's not like all Digimon do is fight."

Dracomon yawned. "In the mean time, I think I'll go to sleep. It seems kind of late."

"Huh? What are you talking about? It's only about nine o'clock."

Dracomon yawned again. "You expect me to stay up and do nothing?"

"Um, I was thinking of going into the living room and powering up the old PlayStation. Why?"

Dracomon thought about it for a second. "Sounds like a good idea to me, whatever that is."

As Nathan and Dracomon walked out of the room and Nathan explained the concept of video games to his partner, the digivice alarm went off. Unfortunately, neither of them heard it.

* * *

A/N: Well, that was the first chapter. I hope you liked it. I had to rewrite it from scratch since the first draft was kind of bland. I hope I at least set up enough of a plot to pique your interest. I'm aiming for a 13 chapter fic, but I'll make a sequel if I get enough response. I just had to take a break from Digimon Scammers or my creativity would have run completely dry.

Unlike the game that Jenrya played on the show, this one had 3-D graphics. Of course, it was early on in the first decade of the new millennium, so why wouldn't it have 3-D graphics. I hope it didn't turn you off, though, since from what I know, not many people liked that episode.


	2. The First of the Rogues

Chapter 2: The First of the Rogues

Disclaimer: Don't own

He walked though the front door of a warehouse. He knew that his employer wanted to see him again, and he was prepared for anything. Normally, he'd be out squandering whatever money he had from playing guitar on the side of the road at the nearby arcade, but that wasn't going to happen tonight.

Life was simple. He didn't have to worry about school anymore, nor did he have to worry about food. Of course, he didn't have to worry about food before this, but now he had freedom, and as he walked through the warehouse with its myriad gears in the background along with pieces of high technology that abounded, he thought about how much life sucked before coming here and accepting the offer of his mysterious employer.

"You finally made it," the employer commented from his chair. He couldn't be seen in the shadows of the warehouse, which had been abandoned after the D-Reaper invasion because of the owners getting it repossessed. The times were tough economically because of said event, and the country didn't seem to be recovering.

"Yeah, I just had to get a few things."

"Of course. It seems there's another Tamer in the north section of town. You may want to go investigate him."

"Him? You're sure that this new Tamer is male?"

"Quite certain. I monitored the game frequencies and it turns out that a Dracomon made it through into the real world. The time has come to start gathering your team. The Tamer's name is Nathan Beckenstein, the latest runner-up in the city tournament."

"Wait, he's the son of the director of Somnus, isn't he?"

"Yes. I'm thinking of recruiting his friend from New Mexico as well, despite the distance."

"Why couldn't the Digignomes have picked the winner?"

The Employer stood up and turned away from his servant. "Because, the girl who won is already a Tamer. You may know her."

The rogue looked at his employer in shock.

Nathan woke up late. Then again it was summer and summer in Vegas meant blistering 110 degree heat, so that meant that he wasn't going to be able to do much outside other than swim. However, he wanted to go out and at least bug his friend Marcus and he had wanted to get up earlier than ten o'clock while he was at it.

He woke up suddenly, jumping up out of bed. Dracomon on the other hand woke up slowly and saw his partner run to his dresser and grab a change of clothes from it. That piqued Dracomon's curiosity and he got up out of bed himself and followed Nathan across the hall to the bathroom. That was when the boy stopped and looked behind.

"Uh, what are you doing?" he asked the Digimon.

"Seeing what you're doing."

Nathan didn't like the thought of his Digimon following him into the shower. "Yeah, us human's have this thing called bathing and well, we prefer to do it alone."

"Why?"

Nathan had no idea how to explain this to the diminutive dragon that was following him and had no clue how most things worked. "We just do. It's a matter of privacy, I guess."

He was sure that the Digimon could care less about seeing him naked, but that just felt wrong. Still, Dracomon just twitched his tail and shrugged. "Well, okay, whatever that means. I guess I'll go watch TV then." He walked off and Nathan walked into the bathroom.

After he was down to his green boxers, however, a thought crossed his mind: _Wait a second. Does he really know how to operate the remote control?_

Upon thinking that, he ran out the door in his underwear and into the living room where his Digimon was sitting on the couch calmly, watching television. "Wait, how did you know how to turn on the TV?" he asked.

"I saw you mess around with it last night, remember. So what channel is that show we watched on again?"

"Uh, that show only comes on late at night."

Dracomon looked at him confused. "Why?"

"It just does. Let's see real quick." Nathan picked up the remote real quick and pressed a couple buttons. For some reason, Dracomon decided to turn it to a Spanish channel where a really bad telenovela was playing. The buttons he pressed caused a menu to show up on screen showing the schedule for numerous TV shows. "I know, how about Cartoon Network." He switched stations and Dexter's Laboratory was playing.

That was when Dracomon said something really bizarre. "Wow, your skin changed colors." As if he wouldn't have noticed that the night before, right? By the time Nathan changed, Dracomon was actually asleep on his bed. He was amazed that his dad hadn't found him in the morning.

"That's called a change of clothes."

"Status report?" Beckenstein requested from the girls operating the computer searching for anomalies.

"So far, no indication of where the next Bio-emergence will be," one of them, the black one, said.

"And what about the new recruit?" Beckenstein asked.

"Per your orders, Marika and Diego are searching North Las Vegas this very moment. Summer vacation seems to have come at the right time."

Diego was actually excited for once. He had found the signal for the guy's digivice and it was nearby. He was currently at the northeast corner of two streets named Craig Road and Allen Lane, waiting for the light to change so he could cross the street.

Unfortunately, his patience was starting to get the better of him as he shook, waiting for the light to actually change. Normally it wasn't this long. Gaomon was standing right next to him with a concerned look. "Are you alright, Diego?"

"Yeah, perfectly fine." When most people saw Gaomon automatically thought that he was just some little kid in a costume.

Finally, the light changed. "Alright, Gaomon, lets go get him!" he yelled out.

"Yes, Diego!" Gaomon shouted, following his partner down Craig Road and turning down a street going north into a housing development.

Diego slowed down in front of a house. "Okay, it should be about here." He walked up to the door and knocked on it, a woman answering a few seconds later.

"Hi, I was wondering if your son or daughter is home."

"I'm sorry, but I don't have any children."

"Have you seen anything looking like this?" he asked, showing off his digivice. The woman shook her head and shut the door, locking it.

Gaomon sensed something, though. "Mast… I mean Diego, there is a Digimon around here."

"Yeah, it's in front of us. Hmm… Maybe it's in the house behind this one." Diego thought about it for a second. He briefly considered climbing the wall, but realized that it would be too suspicious. After all, the woman did deadlock her door because of him. He walked down the woman's driveway and then went north down the street. He felt, hoped that it would be quicker going this way.

"Master, look!" Gaomon yelled pointing his boxing glove down the street at someone riding a bicycle with a suspicious-looking person covered in a blanket riding on the back of him. Diego looked at his digivice to confirm his suspicions and sure enough, the digivice was right over there. Unfortunately, he wouldn't be able to catch up with the bike since he left his at home. The noon heat was bad enough as it was.

"What do you think, Gaomon?" he asked.

"If I digivolved…"

"Are you kidding. That woman's already suspicious about us. Doing that in front of her house would make her call the police." Diego looked at the house in question and saw the woman staring out the window at them.

"Maybe around the corner?"

"That sounds like a good idea to me." Diego and Gaomon ran a ways, and then once they were around the corner and out of the sight range of that woman, he slid a card through his digivice. "Card Slash! Super Evolution Plug-in S!"

**DIGIVOLUTION_**

"Gaomon digivolve to…!"

"Gaogamon." The Digimon's new form resembled a blue wolf with white fur in areas such as around the mouth. Diego mounted the Digimon. "Alright, if you head that way, the woman won't see us," he said, pointing east.

Gaogamon nodded and started running that direction and turning on another street. The housing development was pretty big, though not as big as some in Vegas.

Nathan stopped his bike in front of his friend's house which was on as street just off of Allen just before Ann. He walked up to the front door of the guy's house with Dracomon just behind him and rang the bell. A few minutes later, a tall, skinny black woman opened. "Oh, hello, Nathan. How are you doing today?"

"Oh, pretty good. Is Marcus home?"

"Yeah, you want to come on in?" she asked.

"Sure." Nathan had Dracomon on his back and just hoped that the woman didn't look under the blanket he was covered in. "I just got something to show him, that's all."

"Oh, okay, just go up to his room."

"Okay, thanks!" He walked through the house and up the stairs, though climbing them with Dracomon on his back was tough. Then he opened his friend's door. "Hey! What's up, Marcus!"

"Oh, hey! Not much, man. So, how's your 'Digimon' doing?" he asked and Nathan put Dracomon down in the middle of his friend's floor and shut the door behind him.

"Come on out, Dracomon," he said and the green dinosaur got out of the blanket that was covering him. "See, I was telling the truth."

Marcus was dumbfounded. "Oh, man! You've gotta be kidding me! How… what the heck, man! How come you've got a Digimon before me?"

Dracomon shrugged. "I don't know. Why are you asking me?"

"Oh, man, this is so cool! Can you imagine how much money we'll make?"

Nathan had a slight laugh at the though but didn't like it. "Are you kidding me? The first thing you think of is money."

"Oh, sure man. I'm sick and tired of having to save up for a new X-Box. It's taking forever."

"I was just thinking about fighting enemy Digimon that come from the digital world. Think about it for a second: I'm probably the only Tamer here. Well, there may be others, but what are the chances of them being on this side of town?"

"Good question, man. Oh, just a second." Marcus walked over to his dresser. "You know what a first Tamer needs, right?" he asked rhetorically before answering his own question: "Goggles! Just like every digidestined or chosen child leader that has ever existed. Think about it: you'll be living up to Tai and Davis' legacy."

Nathan chuckled. "Yeah, right. In case you forgot, those are fictional characters, as in, they don't exist."

"Oh, well, at least there's that one goggled Japanese tamer. You know, the guy with the red hair and the orange goggles who appeared naked on Japanese national television much to the dismay of their FCC that requires tentacles in place of…"

"Okay, I got it! I think you should do your research a bit..."

"Here you go, man," Marcus said as he placed the black, round goggles on Nathan's head. "I bought these for myself actually, but since you're the first, you can have them."

"How much are you gonna charge?"

"Oh, nothing. Just think of them as a free gift for filling out a survey at a bank."

"Gee, thanks." Then Nathan looked in the mirror and didn't really like what he saw. "Maybe I'll just wear them for battle."

"Are you kidding, man? You're the leader of the Digidestined, so keep them on all the time!"

Nathan turned to his partner Digimon, asking: "How do I look?"

"Um, I have no idea what those are… I guess they're alright."

"Sweet!" Dracomon turned toward the window and looked out at the street. He felt something. Something was out there, looking for him.

"Um, Nathan…" he said.

"Maybe I'll just put them away when I get home. I don't want my dad knowing I've got a Digimon," Nathan said, trying to take off the goggles.

"Are you kidding, man? Taichi never took off his goggles!"

"Nathan…" the Digimon Dracomon sensed was closer now. He had no idea what it was. He had felt a Digimon presence earlier, but this one was different. It was a Virus Type of sorts.

"Well, not until he gave them to Daisuke, quite stupidly, I might add. Daisuke didn't even lead the team, or at least not in the American dub."

"Eh, I just watch the subs online nowadays. It's amazing what high-speed internet can do. You've got to admit, though, he was pretty much the same in the original."

"How can you even afford that?" They heard the doorbell ring, surprising the two. A few seconds later, Marcus' mom opened the door.

"You friend Ezekiel is here," the woman said.

Nathan looked at Marcus in confusion. "Who's Ezekiel?" he asked.

"To be honest, I have no idea." The two of them followed Marcus' mother downstairs and saw a skinny boy their age with slick, black hair combed back, circular sunglasses and a black outfit consisting of a long-sleeved shirt and long khaki pants. He was sitting down, skipping through the channels and stopping at an overacted Spanish soap-opera once he saw the others.

"Hello, Nathan. How is your partner Digimon doing?" he asked.

"Uh, great… um who are you?"

"My name is Ezekiel Guevara," he said, holding out his hand for a shake, which Nathan returned, hesitantly. "I'm here to give you a purpose. You see, I'm organizing a team to go to the digital world. In a matter of weeks, our assistance will be needed and we will be headed there."

"Whoa," Marcus said in astonishment. "Wait, you serious?"

"Absolutely."

Nathan wasn't too sure about the whole thing. "So, where's your partner Digimon?" he asked.

"Just outside, waiting."

In fact, it wasn't 'just outside'. The Digimon in question, a brown-furred Dobermon was face to face with another dog-like Digimon, Gaogamon. "Turn back now! You have no business here!"

"Dobermon! Where's Ezequiel?" Diego asked, standing next to his partner.

"None of your business! Now scram!"

A woman and her kid walked past the two. "Mommy, look at the doggies!" the little girl said.

The woman was astonished by the size of the animals and subsequently picked up her daughter and ran.

Diego arched an eyebrow. "I need to talk to him. He's… I mean the two of you have been missing for over a month. Where have you been?"

"Again, get out of the way!" Dobermon shouted.

Gaogamon got between Dobermon and his tamer. "Sir, get to the location of the digivice signal, stat! I'll take on Dobermon."

"Got it!" Diego ran down the street. He didn't know why Ezequiel's Digimon was acting this way, but he intended to find out. He reached the house where the digivice signal was coming from, tired and out of breath as the two canine Digimon continued brawling in the middle of the street. He only hoped that nobody was about to head home at this time, which was unlikely since it was long before rush hour.

He knocked on the door loudly, before a black woman opened it up, hearing what was going on outside. "Good lord! What is happening on our street?" she asked, walking out and not noticing Diego, who slipped in without her notice. "I'll be it. Those monsters were bound to come to Vegas someday."

Diego walked even further into the house to see Ezequiel talking to two kids he didn't recognize. "Um, Ezequiel, what's going on?" he asked.

"Oh, it's about time you caught up with me. I'm recruiting for a trip to the digital world to save it."

Again, Diego raised an eyebrow. He was incredibly nervous about meeting new people, but it had to happen eventually. He could already see that one of them had a Dracomon as a partner. It was just a question of which one, which since the woman that answered was black, it had to be the blond guy. "Okay, I'm not sure what you're talking about, bro, but you're going to have to elaborate: save the digital world from what?"

"That I don't know yet. Keep in mind that you're going to have to leave your families behind to help out."

"Okay, I have a question," Nathan said, "Why us? Why not go recruit the team from Japan that beat the crap out of the D-Reaper? Besides, I can't leave my dad behind. I'm all he's got left."

Ezekiel smiled. "I see Diego has planted a seed of doubt in you."

"No, it's just common sense. There's a team just across the ocean that can do the job better than we can…"

"… and they don't speak a word of English… well as far as I know."

Marcus' mother stormed in, scared out of her mind. "Boys, you're going to have to get out of here! There's a monster battle outside!" Then she noticed Dracomon. "Um, what is this?" she asked.

"Uh, sorry, that's just my partner. I'll take him out of the house."

"You better! I don't want that thing in my house."  
"Hey, I didn't break anything," Dracomon said.

"Let's just leave," Marcus said, walking out. He was starting to have second thoughts about having a partner Digimon. Walking outside brought them to the spectacle of the dogfight in the street.

"Ezequiel! Could you please call off Dobermon?" Diego asked.

"Holy, crap, Champion Levels! I think I have Dobermon's card in my collection," Marcus said, "or at least the part of my collection that my dad didn't throw away."

Nathan looked at his friend in shock. "Oh, man, that sucks."

"I can blame it on the one time he saw an episode of Digimon. It was the episode with the prophecy and VenomMyotismon in the first season. He wasn't impressed."

Ezekiel was smug as ever. He pulled out a card and proceeded to turn it into a blue card. "Dobermon, time to go to the Ultimate Level!" he shouted. Unfortunately, just as he was about to slide the card, a large dome of mist formed over all of them, including the feuding Digimon.

"_Ezekiel, I'm going to need you to return to base with Dobermon. I don't want Somnus to get involved,"_ he heard his employer say through his earpiece.

"Understood." He proceeded to get run out of the dome and then, using his digivice, call his Digimon out of the battle.

"We are to go back to headquarters," he told his Digimon.

"Oh, man, you have got to be kidding," the giant Doberman said as his tamer mounted his back. "I was starting to get an edge on him too."

"No excuses. Besides, we have to keep headquarters in line while our master is off in New Mexico."

"Oh, great, babysitting."

Inside the digital field, things weren't exactly going well. There was an enemy Digimon shaped like a giant, flying, green insect running rampant and causing significant damage to Gaogamon and attempting to skewer the kids on the surface.

"Hey, blond guy!" Diego called out, "What's your name?"

"Nathan." Nathan had promptly put his goggles over his eyes to shield his eyes from the mist while Diego had sunglasses on.

"Take this card and use it!" the overweight guy said, giving Nathan an evolution card.

Nathan and nodded, and after thinking up a funky and cheesy new term yelled out, "Digi-Modify!" while sliding the card through the digivice, "Super Evolution Plug-in S, activate!"

**DIGIVOLUTION_**

Dracomon found himself in a data-sphere that was rotating all shades of green. "Dracomon Digivolve to…!" the Digimon yelled as his skin peeled off, revealing the matrix underneath and causing him to change form into a far larger, blue dragon with larger wings. "Coredramon!"

Coredramon looked up at the Snimon headed his way and with a flap of his wings, flew up to meet him, filling his mouth with blue flame as he launched a blue fireball at the enemy Digimon. "Blue Flare Breath!"

Flight was a trait that Diego's partner didn't have. If this battle was any indication, Nathan was going to be a viable member to the team, that is, if he actually wanted to join. The Snimon took the fireball attack head on, suffering quite a bit of damage, and attempted to strike with its scythe-like arm, which was caught by Coredramon, who proceeded to dig his claws into the giant bug's chest.

Then he launched another attack with his tail, going straight for the Digi-core. "Strike Bomber!" The Digimon then proceeded to disintegrate. Coredramon absorbed the data into himself, nourishing himself with it. It was something that members of Somnus weren't allowed to do but since Nathan wasn't a member and Coredramon didn't know any better, Diego was going to let it slide this time.

"Good job," Diego complemented Diego as the mist disappeared from the street.

"Thanks." Nathan watched as Gaogamon devolved back into his lower form. "By the way, I don't think we got an actual introduction," Nathan said, holding his hand out to shake it. "My name's Nathan."

"Diego, Diego Guevara," he said. Nathan couldn't remember Ezekiel's introduction earlier other than the first name and how Diego pronounced it weirdly, so he didn't make the connection.

"Good to meet you. Been taming long?"

"A couple months."

"So, when's Coredramon supposed to de-digivolve?"

"In a few hours," Diego replied, causing Nathan's mouth to open wide in shock.

"Wait, you mean I have to wait for this guy to revert?"

"Um, don't worry, he'll do it eventually. I work for an organization called Somnus who monitors Digimon and their Tamers. Actually, just take this card." Nathan slid the card that Diego gave him and Coredramon reverted to Dracomon.

"Do you guys go off to save the digital world?"

"If only. We haven't heard of anything that it needed to be saved from recently and even if the Digital World needed saving, we wouldn't have any way of getting there."

"So, do I have to have anything to do with these Somnus guys or…?"

"Well, you have to let them know you're around and whether or not you want to help us stop bioemergences or not."

"I'm coming!" Marcus called out, walking toward the duo. His mother wasn't out so she couldn't object. "So, where's this Somnus group supposed to be, anyway?"

"Eh, it's top secret. Believe me: we've got too many people from the tabloids trying to start up conspiracy theories about us as it is."

"Still, man, I've gotta come with you, man."

"So, any other questions?" Diego asked.

"Eh, I'm just worried about what my dad would think if he found out about this," Nathan asked. "Oh, and when do we go?"

Diego smiled. "I can call a ride and we can go there now, if you want."

The car came quicker than expected and surprisingly it was a limo. The three boys and two Digimon piled in and the limo was surprisingly spacious. The only drawback was that the windows were blacked out. "You think you can set me up with a partner Digimon?" Marcus asked.

"Eh…" Diego trailed off, not knowing how to answer, "That's not something we do."

"So, are we going to, like, Area 51 or something, because the blacked out windows are overkill?"  
Nathan understood the use of blacked out windows. "If the place is supposed to be secret, they're needed, especially since one of us here in the car doesn't exactly need to know where Somnus is at."

Diego smiled while reclining. "He's right."

"Yeah, I know about this stuff because my dad works at Area 51. I don't know what he does but he had to go there during the D-Reaper invasion for something."

Diego's eyes widened. "What's his name?"

"Johnny Beckenstein," Nathan responded, invoking a frightened response from the overweight Latino. "What? Don't tell me you know him."

"That's my boss! Holy crap! You're his kid that he didn't want getting a partner!"

Nathan was dumbstruck. "Wait, so my dad runs Somnus?"

"Well, he runs the Las Vegas division, anyway."

Nathan was silent for several seconds, letting it all sink in. "Marcus, brace yourself."

A/N: If you're confused about Ezekiel/Ezequiel's name, don't worry, both spellings are right. Ezequiel is the Spanish version, pronounced eh-seh-KYEL. Most of the time, though, he's just going to go by his English name.


	3. The Girl with the Lunamon

Chapter 3: The Girl with the Lunamon

* * *

Disclaimer: Don't own.

* * *

Ezekiel had no idea what to do with the blue card that he formed to attempt a transformation to the Ultimate level. He pondered it for a few hours while looking at the city in front of him. He was on the opposite end of town from the Tamers and Somnus , so he had a view of the other side of the various casinos that dotted the landscape.

The idea hit him while he looked around. He was going to give it to the black guy in exchange for joining his team. Yes, the plan was flawless. The guy obviously wanted a partner and may be willing to do anything for one. If he decided not to join, then Ezekiel could just dispose of the Digimon.

"Dobermon!" Ezekiel shouted.

The massive Doberman pinscher appeared next to him. "Yes?"

"Let's go to the house we were at earlier today. I have a plan."

Dobermon couldn't understand what his Tamer wanted but he went along with it anyway.

Nathan shook as he walked through the hangar that the limo had parked in, afraid of what his father was going to think once he found out that his son had a partner Digimon. Oh, sure, the two of them had gone through far worse together, but this was entirely different from the memory that had flashed through Nathan's mind.

Way different.

"Okay, here we are!" Diego exclaimed as the three boys were about to enter the briefing room, only to be stopped by Marika, who was in their way.

"Wow, look what the cat dragged in," the girl said, smiling at Nathan. "He's almost cuter than Ezekiel."

"Um, Marika, why don't you wait until after I brief the director? We have a problem now and it involves Ezequiel."

Marika looked at him, concerned. "You found him dead, didn't you?"

Diego shook his head. "He seems to have gone rogue and he had gone after Nathan, the new Tamer. To make matters worse, he had formed a blue card. We all know what that was going to do."

Marika's eyes widened. "You're kidding!"

"I wish I was."

"Wait a second…" Marika's eyes narrowed as a realization hit her about the identity of the new tamer. "You played against me in the finals the other day, didn't you?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Are you single?"

"Marika!" Diego snapped. "This isn't time to be hitting on the new guy!"

"Oh, please, when is it ever time to hit on the new guy?" she joked. "At least he's better looking than you."

"That wasn't very nice," Nathan heard a small figure say. He looked down next to Marika to see a familiar-looking puppy-like Digimon.

"Salamon?" Nathan asked.

"My name is Plotmon. Remember, Marika, we're supposed to be a team. You can't go on talking about your teammates looks like that."

"Hey, I was only joking." Then she let the three boys through, but not before checking out Marcus as well. She loved black guys.

* * *

Diego walked into the briefing room to hear his boss call out to him. "Well, this had better be good!"

"Uh, well, good news and bad. The good news is that we might have a new member. The bad is that he's your son and that Ezequiel seems to have gone rogue."

Jonny Beckenstein's reaction was better than expected. "Somehow I'm not surprised. Okay, Nathan, here's the thing: I've been suspicious ever since you had shown me that broken monitor and just because you're my son doesn't mean that I'm going to go easy on you, got it?"

"Uh, yeah," Nathan was sweating profusely.

"And another thing, you had better come home; otherwise I wouldn't be able to live with myself. It's bad enough that you've become a tamer, but I don't want you dead. If your Digimon is deleted, get out of wherever you are as soon as possible. Understand?"

Nathan nodded. Of course, just because his dad was going to let him slide this time didn't mean that they weren't going to talk about it later.

"Alright, now for your next mission: remember the girl from a month ago that you said didn't want to join in on us? It turns out that she fought against an emerged Digimon last night."

"Wait, you mean Claire?" Diego asked.

"Claire?" Nathan had no idea who she could have been.

"Yeah, she's this chick that's in high school already, despite being the same age as us. She ended up causing a bio-emergence on accident by playing with a V-Pet on her computer."

"Man, what is with technology giving everyone Digimon?" Nathan asked.

"Anyway, I want you to take our new recruit with you since it's an easy mission to start off with. If what you said about your brother is true, then we need a good team put together and not just the three of you."

Diego nodded. "Yeah, he was trying to recruit Nathan. Remember, there's also another guy who can reach mega if need be."

"I want to use him as a last resort. You are going to have to do without him if you ever want to get by without him since he's not even from this world."

Nathan was bored and had no idea what his dad was talking about. Marcus was enthused, though.

"So, can I come along?"

Beckenstein paused for a second before giving his one-word answer. "No. You don't even have a partner Digimon. What are you doing here in the first place? This place is off limit to non-tamers!"

Diego was visibly shaking. "He insisted to come along."

Beckenstein glared at the overweight boy. "And you didn't stop him?" Beckenstein put his palm on his forehead. "Kids… Okay, first order of business: return Marcus to his house, and then go look for Claire. Got it?"

The two boys nodded, walking out with their digimon behind them. Marcus however stayed behind. "Okay, so can't you like hook me up with a partner or something?"

"We're not the ones who choose the chosen, Marcus. If you want to be a Tamer, call up a digignome. I'm sure one of them will be of assistance."

Marcus had no idea what Beckenstein was talking about and he continued thinking about it on the way back to his place with Nathan and Diego. "You guys are so lucky," he said. "I'm just wondering: what's a Digignome and where can I find one?"

Nathan had no idea how to respond and Diego was surprised that Marcus had even heard of digignomes. "Well," Diego started to say, "Digignomes are these… um… fairy-like digital life forms that grant wishes. I've never actually seen one though and I have no idea where any are."

"So…" Nathan started to ask a question. "My dad mentioned that you had a brother. Is he…"

"Ezequiel? Yeah…"

"Why do you keep pronouncing his name like that?"

"That's how his name is pronounced in Spanish."

"Whoa, you speak Spanish?" Marcus asked.

"I wish. My parents came to this country twenty years ago but they didn't raise me bilingual, which sucks. I guess I'll have to learn it in school."

"Eh, when has anybody ever gotten fluent from high-school foreign language instruction?" Marcus asked.

"Says you. You can't even stick to learning Japanese!" Nathan shot back, smiling.

"Hah, hah. I just started a regimen that should help me out involving spaced repetition software, Kanji and Naruto." Diego didn't know what the first thing was and so he jotted it down for later on a notepad he had in his pocket.

"Didn't want to go through V-Tamer 01, eh?" Nathan asked.

Diego had no clue what they were talking about other than the series in question being anime. Well, he was almost right.

* * *

A few minutes later, Marcus was dropped off and the limo was on its way to the girl's house. "So, how did you get Gaomon?" Nathan asked.

Diego smiled for a second. "I kind of found him on accident. My brother and I were walking home from school one day when we came across him. Anyway, he had made it to the real world badly injured, having barely escaped an enemy Digimon, so we took him home and despite our parents protests at first, they came to accept him."

"That's good. What school do you go to?"

"We went to Lied. Now though, I'm going to Cheyenne. My brother and I are about ten months apart so we got to go to the same school. That and we spent our first few years in California so I have to be in his grade level despite being born in August. He's younger than me by the way, born May 23 while I was born August 2."

"Well, I hope we have some classes together."

The defection of Diego's brother bothered him deeply and he clenched his fists thinking about it. Soon after their conversation ended, the limo stopped in front of a house and the two Tamers and their Digimon walked out. It was odd having a fancy limousine in the middle of a middle-class housing development, but the awkwardness left with the black vehicle. "Okay, she knows me so I'll knock and talk. Is that okay?"

Nathan nodded. "What about the Digimon?" he asked.

"Uh, just go put them out of view for a few minutes."

Nathan rolled his eyes in disdain of the task set before him. "Okay, guys, you have to come with me."

"Oh, man, you've gotta be kidding me," Dracomon complained. Gaomon, on the other hand, was compliant with Nathan's demands.

Diego waited for a few seconds before someone answered the door. It was a voluptuous woman with blond hair that was obviously dyed and blue eyes. "Hello, how may I help you?"

"Hi, I'm looking for Claire."

"Oh, Claire! Well, she's currently spending the afternoon with her friends at the pool."

"Alright, thank you. Have a good day."

"Okay, you too." Diego started to walk away as the door was shut.

"She's swimming," Diego said.

"Uh, you got any swim trunks?" Nathan asked.

"I'm going to need to call my mom and have her drop some off. My house is only about two miles away so it shouldn't be a problem. You?"

"I live right by here. I'm not sure if any of mine'll fit you, though."

"Ha ha."

* * *

A half hour later, the two were at the concession stand for the pool, trunks in grocery bags in hand. They got to the cashier and claimed that their Digimon were stuffed animals, which worked since there was no way most kids except for the smallest could fit in costumes the size of the Digimon. They got in, changed in the bathroom stalls that were located in the locker room, stored some of their stuff in a locker, showered and walked out if the room.

"Glad that's over with. I thought I was going to see some naked guy or something for a second there," Nathan commented. He was wearing green floral swim trunks.

"Good thing we didn't," Diego replied. He was wearing blue trunks and a black t-shirt.

"So, where's this chick at?" Nathan asked. They looked around to see numerous girls in bikinis, causing both of them to get red. "I think I'm in heaven."

"Yeah…" Diego replied lightly.

"So, what does she look like?"

Diego looked around, trying not to get distracted by the numerous female bodies that were walking around. Then his eyes settled upon a blonde girl that was walking up the spiral staircase leading up to the slide. "She's up there and she's a blonde girl," he pointed. Now, the public swimming pool consisted of two large diamond-shaped sections connected to each other: one side for the little kids and the other for older kids and adults.

"Oh, cool, the slide. I guess we have no choice but to go up it."

Diego objected. "Wouldn't it be better to just wait for her down here?"

"And miss going down the slide? I don't think so."

"Alright, you guys be good and guard our lawn chairs, okay?" Diego told the two Digimon.

"You bet!" Dracomon exclaimed.

"Sir, yes, sir!" The response from Gaomon got on Diego's nerves.

"You know, Nathan, I'm still not sure about this," he said.

"Hey, relax a little. Who said that missions have to be completely serious. Live a little. Have some fun!"

"At least you don't have a brother that's gone rogue."

"True, but we have to have fun every once and a while. Think, this'll help calm your nerves a little bit."  
"Very funny, Nathan." The two of them got into line and after what seemed like forever, finally got to go down the slide.

"So, that's the trick for going down this thing really fast," Nathan finished saying when it was his turn to go.

"Like I'm going to try it…" As Nathan went down the slide, Diego looked over the edge for the girl. He couldn't find her. Then he looked at his Digimon. Some girl took over _his_ lawn chair that was covered by _his_ orange towel. He grimaced at the sight and barely registered the tap on his shoulder.

"Um, it's your turn," the male lifeguard told him.

"Oh, sorry." Diego went down the slide, eventually crashing into the waters below after sliding for what seemed like forever. Then he got out of the pool and walked to his lawn chair to kick off the girl and reprimand his Digimon for not fulfilling his orders.

Unfortunately, the girl proved to be all too familiar. "Hey, Diego, what's up?" It was Marika, wearing a bikini that had a red top and a black bottom.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"Hey, a girl can have some fun too, can't she?"

"So, where's Nathan?"

Dracomon pointed at the slide. "He decided to go for another round in that tall thing."

"Gah!" Diego was astonished by the inability of the team at getting _anything_ done.

"Why don't you just go get the girl yourself?" Marika asked. "Of course, she stole my bounty last night, but still, you might as well get her."

"Why were you even called to that emergence anyway?" Diego asked. "I live closer to it than you do."

"Oh, it was my turn."

"And a powerful enemy Digimon could have ended up trashing the place." That was when Nathan got back.

"So, where's the girl?"

Diego looked around. She was back in line for the slide. For a brief second Diego had an idea go through his mind of having Nathan digivolve Dracomon and making the dragon destroy the slide.

Oh, it was so tempting.

"I guess we'll wait," Diego said.

"Sure you don't want to go up again?" Marika asked as a joke.

"Does it look like I do?" Diego snapped.

"Sheesh, chill out!"

"Man, sometimes I feel like I'm the only one taking this whole thing seriously."

"Hey, man, don't worry. We'll get this mission finished and your brother back," Nathan reassured him.

"In the mean time, while the girl's coming down, you can just relax, take off that shirt, get a tan and show off that manly chest of yours," Marika said.

Diego glared at her, his left eye twitching. Everybody seemed to be out to test his patience today. Oh well, he knew the best way to get revenge, and it involved showing them his sixth grade yearbook. He smiled at the thought; it was going to be glorious.

He was almost too wrapped up in his thoughts to notice the girl getting out of the water that the slide led into. She had a lavender bikini and had blond hair. She recognized him immediately and walked toward him.

"Hey, how's it going?" she asked. Nathan looked at her in awe. No girl would come up to him and talk to him like that.

"Great. By the way, these are a couple of my friends," he gestured toward Nathan, "Nathan," then toward Marika, "and Marika."

"Oh, good to meet you guys! I'm Claire."

Nathan was speechless. Marika wasn't affected. "Good to meet you. Now, we've got something to ask."

"Um, yeah," Diego said, trying to hold back a blush but failing. "You fought an enemy Digimon last night."

"Yeah, well, my digivice kept going off in the middle of the night, so I decided to check it out. That was when this ugly… thing attacked me and my partner. I figured I had to do something, though I only had a few cards to use that my brother had."

Diego was having a hard time saying the next part so Marika decided to speak. "Well, it turns out that since you did that, you have to join us in Somnus ."

Claire looked at Diego in surprise. "Wait, you can't be serious."

"Don't worry, it'll be fun," Marika said. "Believe me: I need another girl on the team. If you want, we can go to Hot Topic later."

"Uh, I don't go to that store."

"Oh, no problem. We can still go shopping."

Claire chuckled a bit. "I won't have to live at Somnus headquarters or anything, will I?" she asked, somewhat wary.

"No, of course not," Diego responded. "I still live at home and so does Nathan. Marika just lives at Somnus because of special circumstances."

"Yeah, getting kicked out of the house for being a Tamer. Believe me; you don't want to live on the streets."

"Alright, I'll do it. I just heard some things that I guess weren't true," Claire said.

"Yeah, there are a bunch of bogus organizations out there that kidnap tamers and their Digimon, claiming to want to cure them," Diego said.

A shiver ran up Nathan's spine. "You're kidding me!"

"Nope, unfortunately I'm not. It's especially prevalent in developing nations. Sometimes these kids are conscripted as soldiers. It's really depressing, actually."

"So, what's your partner?" Nathan asked the girl.

"Just a second, I'll go get her."

A minute later, the girl was back with a small, lavender fairy Digimon with large, poofy ears and a crescent moon on its forehead. "This is Lunamon."

Nathan shook Lunamon's small hand. "Good to meet you."

"Likewise."

"So, Diego, how come you're like the only guy in the pool area with a shirt on? There are tons of guys here that look worse off than you."

"Eh… I don't want to talk about it."

"Yeah, he had his appendix removed and there's a massive scar on his chest," Nathan said, prompting a response from Diego.

"No I didn't!"

Claire smiled. "And another question, when's my first mission?"

"As soon as a Digimon shows up."

"Oh, and where's the cute guy that was with you last time we met?"

Diego knew that the question was going to come up sooner or later. "Uh, he went rogue. I'm not sure what his plans are, to be honest."

"That's too bad. Were you two good friends?"

"He was my brother."

"Oh, I'm so sorry." Claire then hugged him. He smiled really uneasily, blushing while doing so. "I hope we can get him back to being good."

Marika just rolled her eyes.

* * *

Late that afternoon, Marcus was reading when he received a knock at the window. He didn't know what to expect and saw nothing when he opened it. When he was about to close it, he heard a voice: "Going somewhere?"

He knew who it was from earlier in the day. "Ezekiel."

"Yes, now I have a proposition for you."

"You tried attacking my friend."

Ezekiel shrugged as Marcus looked straight at him. "How are you sure that it wasn't Gaogamon who attacked first? You don't know my brother well enough to trust him."

Marcus didn't know enough to respond to that. "That's what I thought: no answer. Now, I only have a short amount of time before the master returns, but I wanted to give you this." Ezekiel gave Marcus the blue card he formed earlier. "Now, I don't know whether this will do what blue cards normally do when they're slid through a scanner since I created it to attempt Matrix Digivolution…"

"Matrix Digivolution?"

"Yes, Digivolution to the Ultimate Level."

"You can do that?"

"Yes. Dobermon's quite the ferocious beast once he reaches that level. Anyway, in exchange for you getting a partner Digimon, I want you to join my team."

"Um, I'm not sure."

"Think it over. In the mean time, you can keep the card."

Marcus looked at the blue card in his hand and grabbed a card reader like the one a certain Takato Matsuki used to create a digivice. "So, just scan it through something like this and I'll get a partner Digimon?"

"Close, you have to have it create a partner, too. Scan that card and then either scan some drawings of an imaginary Digimon or a Rookie Level Digimon card and you'll create an egg. Then tomorrow, the egg will hatch." Of course he left out that if he decided not to join then he wouldn't be able to keep the Digimon, but still, it would be worth it. After all, either Dobermon or the partner of the recruit from New Mexico could use some data.

Marcus looked over at some of the remaining cards from his collection and picked one up. He decided that that specific Digimon would be his partner. He had imagined having it as a partner ever since getting the card in one of the latest boosters and wondered what its higher forms were other than the Champion form.

He slid the blue card through the reader, causing it to shine brightly, and then put the reader on his desk, watching as it turned into a gray D-Arc with a red ring around the center. Then he slid the card through the digivice and watched as it scanned the data from the rookie. Soon after, he slid through some screens and saw a striped blue and grey egg form and pulsate.

"So, how long do I have to wait?" he asked, but Ezekiel was gone. He looked out the window and the mysterious Tamer was missing.

* * *

"So, how did the mission go, today?" Johnny Beckenstein asked his son at the dinner table. They were eating some soup that Johnny made from a can and that was still steaming. Dracomon was trying to eat some of the soup too, but ended up giving up and drinking it even though it was extremely hot. He didn't seem to notice, though, since he sometimes has fire coming out of his mouth anyway.

"Good."

"By the way, you didn't exactly receive a positive report. Apparently, you were distracted and encouraged goofing off instead of actually doing your job. Keep in mind Nathan: you need to take this task seriously or you won't last long as a Tamer."

Nathan was surprised by that statement. Who would say that he was goofing off? Then it struck him: Diego.

"Alright, thanks for telling me that."

"You're welcome. It's just… well… you're constantly going to be going into dangerous situations. Sometimes the decisions you make could mean life or death. Believe me: I know from experience." What Beckenstein was referring to was how he had gone to Vietnam during the war there. He was drafted in 1968 much to his dismay and had been put in the Army to fight there. He was able to get a job as an engineer and not have to fight that much until later. Needless to say, some of the missions were far more dangerous than expected.

Another thing he did was go to Russia as a spy during the cold war, specifically during the 70s. To do so, he had to pass as a Russian and learn the Russian language to native fluency in six months. He did so thanks to heavy training from the Defense Language Institute. He was also taught things such as computer programming, hacking, and how things were put together. Nathan didn't know the half of it.

Still, Nathan was going to try to take that to heart. Unfortunately, he didn't know the things that were in store for him.

* * *

A/N: Yeah, not much of an action chapter, though it moved the plot along slightly.


	4. The Other Rogue

Chapter 4: The Other Rogue

* * *

Disclaimer: Don't own Digimon.

* * *

The hot water felt good as it hit his back, went down his body and toward the ground. He often lost himself in such moments when the stress of the world around him seemed to go down the drain. He was long done with scrubbing down and just enjoyed the moment. Then it all ended when he heard a knock at the door.

"You've been in there too long! By the way, your friends are here."

_Oh, crap!_ Of course his mother would ruin things. Oh well. He just had to dry off and put on the clothes that he put on the bathroom sink. Then he exited the bathroom and walked just across the hall to his own room where he saw both Nathan and Marcus going through his yearbook.

"Hey, what's up?" Nathan exclaimed upon seeing his friends. Diego was surprised that Nathan still had the goggles on since he didn't seem to like them that much the day before.

"Not much," Diego responded, drying out his ear with the white towel. His room was clean, like always and his bed was on one side, perfectly made with a blue comforter covering white sheets, while his desk, where Marcus was sitting at, was on the opposite side. In between, there was a window against the wall and the floors were hard wood. Diego kept his clothes in the white dresser at the foot of his bed. "So, you guys are early."

"Uh, we just have something we need to get done later on," Marcus said.

"Yeah?" The yearbook that Marcus was looking through had a gator on the cover dressed like a 17th century explorer for some reason. Oh, the plan was underway already.

"By the way, we found your sixth grade picture," Nathan said. "You had glasses, huh?"

"Uh, yeah. I don't need to wear them anymore since I got contacts last year."

"Check out the band pic," Marcus said, "Man, I hate that I took explorations instead of trying to learn how to play an instrument. Hehe, check out this dude: Tyler Wergin. I wonder who he was."

"Why does this black guy here reminds me of you?" Nathan asked.

"I don't know but he sure has one wacky last name. I mean, Lightfoot, I wonder what his ancestors were on to think of that one."

Diego just wanted this evil plan to go underway. "Can I see that for a second? I gotta show you a picture."

Marcus gave Diego the yearbook. "Let me guess, you got a funny autograph or something," Nathan assumed.

"Nope, look at this picture," Diego said, showing a group picture in the back of the yearbook. At first, Nathan had no idea what Diego was getting at. Then he saw it. Oh, how he didn't want to see it. But it was there in front of him.

"What are you talking about, man?" Marcus asked. Nathan pointed at it, eliciting a response from Marcus. "Wait! What the heck! How the heck did that get published in a yearbook?"

"Yeah, seriously, this puts our POW camp 8th grade picture with the gang signs and glum students to shame," Nathan said. "Now, seriously, I hope that chick got expelled for that. Either that, or I hope it wasn't intentional."

"Are you kidding me? These are middle-schoolers, so that _was_ intentional, end of story."

"Still, I wonder why the publications department didn't bother editing it. All it takes is drawing a..."

"I think you've seen enough," Diego said after getting the response he wanted and getting tired of his friends' banter. "So, where's your Digimon?"

"Just outside behind your air-conditioning unit on the side of the house. We flew him here and didn't know how your parents would react with him in the house like that."

At that moment, Gaomon walked into the room holding a tray with a bowl of cereal on it. "Here you go, Diego," the anthropomorphic canine said, setting it on Diego's desk.

"Thanks, man," Diego said as Marcus got up, letting him sit down at the desk to eat. "So, what are we going to do today? We have a free day until the next mission comes up."

Marcus smiled, "Yeah…"

"Just remember, you can't come along."

Marcus held out his gray and red digivice, "Says who?"

"He's been bragging about it ever since he came by my house this morning," Nathan said. "Believe me, it gets old after awhile."

Diego was extremely surprised. "But, how…?"  
"I found a blue card yesterday," Marcus said, smiling. Of course, he wasn't about to disclose the source of the card, namely a certain Rogue Tamer.

"Wow, that's great. I take it; it was in your card collection by chance, huh?"

"Oh, yeah. Now I just gotta go get my partner." Marcus pressed a button on his D-Arc, shifting to a compass. "The egg's already hatched. We just gotta go find it."

"It's somewhere to the south of here," Nathan said.

"What did you get?" Diego asked, prompting Marcus to hold up a card. "Hm… that'll be a good partner. I just know a couple of its higher forms, but one of them probably doesn't count since it's technically a dark digivolution."

"Yeah, the one that showed up in V-Tamer?"

Diego nodded. "Yup, a potential Mega form that was reached using some of Arkadimon's data. From what I remember reading, AeroVeedramon had a hard time beating the thing."

"I'm surprised you read the Manga," Marcus said.

"I looked it up online after hearing about it from you guys. I haven't actually read it, just looked up info on it."

Nathan nodded and Marcus asked impatiently, "So, are we going to go or what?"

* * *

Diego was talking on the phone as they walked out of his neighborhood. "So, why the heck does he get a cell-phone?" Marcus asked.

"I think he got that for working for Somnus ," Nathan responded.

"So, what's a phone for?" Dracomon asked.

"To talk to people who are far away."  
"Man, do you have to explain everything to Dracomon?" Marcus asked.

"Just about. He's new to this world, so he doesn't know that much about the goings on here. I think I'm going to attempt to teach him to read soon, just to help him along."

"Good luck with that."

Diego walked up behind them. "Okay, here's the thing: Beckenstein knows about the emergence and already sent Marika and Claire to investigate and get the Digimon. He figured that since it's a Rookie, he'd just have them capture it and bring it to Somnus Headquarters."

"Did you tell him that it was my partner?" Marcus asked.

"Actually, I didn't, well, not yet, anyway. Apparently, the emergence point's on the opposite end of town, near Henderson."

"Dang, man, that's nuts. There are emergences there?"

Diego nodded. "Yeah. There was a small D-Reaper bubble on the strip, not that big but big enough to cause some trouble."

"Now, what I'm wondering," Nathan said, "…is why most of the emergences lately have been in North Las Vegas. Aren't we a bit far from the strip."

Diego nodded. "Yeah, but some other things have happened. Most of the emergences only started about two months ago, shortly before I got Gaomon. The latest are a bit different."

"Yeah, how so?"

"They're being set up by someone or something. Each of the emergences for the past few weeks has been in strategic points on the barrier between worlds so that if enough of them were breached, something big would come from the other side."

"How big?" Nathan asked, warily.

"An Ultimate Level, at least."

* * *

Claire didn't know what to expect when Marika seemingly came out of nowhere at the mall. The mall in question, Meadows Mall, was a massive two-story shopping complex. Claire and her friends were walking out of JCPenny when the girl walked up to her. "Hey, Claire, what's up?"

"Who is this chick?" one of Claire's friends, a brunette, asked with disdain. Marika reacted coolly, trying her best not to harbor any resentment.

"I'm just someone she knows from her neighborhood. I need to talk to Claire for a few minutes." Marika gestured and the two girls walked a little ways from Claire's friends. Claire was wearing a pink shirt and some form-fitting blue-jeans.

Oddly enough, Claire was the first to speak. "Hey, sorry about my friends. I wasn't expecting you to be here. What's going on?"

"Well, we have a mission."

"Great, I was going to go get some new clothes."

"Sorry about that. It turns out there's a bioemergence on the south side of town and Beckenstein wanted us to investigate. It's a Rookie-level so it shouldn't be a problem."

Claire nodded. "So, what should I say to my friends?"

"Well, good question. I take it you didn't tell them about Lunamon like Nathan told that one black friend of his?"

"Um, no. None of them know about my obsession with Digimon and most of them think that Lunamon's just a stuffed toy. What are we going to do about her?"

"I dropped by your house earlier; that was how I found you here. While I was there, I picked up Lunamon."

"Thank you. I guess I'll just have to say that something came up at home and I have to leave for a little bit."

"That's good enough. You're not lying either."

* * *

Claire's friends didn't particularly like that she was going with some 'ugly Goth chick,' as they called Marika. Marika didn't really self-identify with that sort of subculture, however she wasn't easily offended.

They talked a little bit while they rode; however, they didn't have much in common. Claire liked regular old pop music and boy bands while Marika preferred edgier underground alternative bands that Claire had never even heard of. It was a relief when the disguised government vehicle stopped.

"Sierra Vista High School. Funny how I had never heard of this place," Marika commented, walking out of the car with Plotmon in her arms. As they walked toward the emergence, they talked a little bit.

"What school do you go to?" Claire asked.

"Odyssey Charter School," the girl replied. "It's an online program. I had a hard time finishing eighth grade because of circumstances and I had no other alternative. You're going to Cheyenne, right?"

"A-Tech, actually."

"I wanted to go to that school. Didn't get a call back from them, though, and with the way things are going right now, I'd rather finish High School as soon as possible. It's rough out there in the world."

"I'm sure. Why did your parents…"

"…kick me out?" Marika chuckled. "My dad hated Digimon ever since he heard about them attacking Tokyo almost two years ago. You remember when Vikaralamon attacked, right?"

"He's the giant pig, right?"

"Yeah. Well, after that and later on after the D-Reaper, my dad hoped that the Digimon wouldn't come back. Later on they did, first with the Parasimon and then others after that. He joined an anti-Digimon group. He didn't like that I had all this Digimon merchandise, so he made me get rid of it. I kept my cards though and stored them all where he couldn't find them. One day, though, while looking through my collection to figure out new strategies for my deck, I found a mysterious blue card."

"That's just like how I got mine."

"Yeah, I've heard a lot about other kids getting Digimon through blue cards. I didn't have a Digimon at first, just an empty digivice. However, when my dad found it, he immediately accused me of bringing a Digimon into the house."

"Then he kicked you out?"  
"Not before giving me over to some rogue organization. Believe me; you don't want to hear about it. However, I escaped and now I'm here."

"I'm glad my parents don't seem to mind much. They just don't want me fighting with Lunamon."

"Who can blame them?" Marika smiled at that. "At least they care."

They were at the location of the bioemergence. It was in the middle of the school gym. Unfortunately, it was locked. "Do you have a hairpin?" Marika asked.

"Sure, here you go," Claire responded, giving the other girl something out of her hair. Marika took it and messed around with the lock a little until it clicked.

"Marika used to do this to sneak into her house," Plotmon said.

"Only a couple times," Marika said. "I had to get my cards sometime. Meanwhile, I borrowed some food."

The Digimon wasn't there yet. The digital field was just started to form and was taking its time, right there in the middle of the gymnasium. Then it burst forth, tossing the two girls backwards. "Great! I hate it when emergences are like that!" Marika exclaimed, getting up despite being slightly bruised. Unfortunately, as she was getting up, a large blue Digimon walked in front of the doorway. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me. That can't be what emerged."

"You're right, Marika," she looked behind her and leaning against a tree was Ezekiel, smiling smugly and adjusting his sunglasses. "That, my lady, is Veedramon, Cody's partner."

Marika looked up on the room and saw an extremely muscular boy with brown hair looking down at her, smiling. She could tell from his glazed eyes that he was half-mad.

"You've got a teammate. How come we didn't detect his partner's emergence?"

"It emerged out of your jurisdiction. Keep in mind, though, that Veedramon's a powerful champion level, strong enough to take on Ultimates."

Cody jumped down. "So, ready to get it on?" he shouted, overly macho and grinning incessantly. Marika looked at his black and blue digivice, which was attached to his belt. He was wearing a white, tucked-in muscle shirt and some blue jeans and was above average in height, taller than both her and Ezekiel.

"You're a monster," Marika told Ezekiel.

"Yeah? I'm only working toward the goal of saving the digital world. As they say, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."

Marika rolled her eyes and slid an evolution card. "Claire, do you have an evolution card you can use?" Marika shouted.

"No, all my cards are at home," Claire replied, having not expected to be stuck in such a predicament. Marika tossed the card at her and she caught it.

"Card Slash! Super Evolution Plug-in S!" they yelled, sliding their cards through their digivices: Marika's was gray and black while Claire's was gray and white.

**DIGIVOLUTION_**

"Plotmon digivolve to…" Plotmon turned into a taller, more humanoid form with four wings, a couple swords, one big, one small and a staff with what looked like a small Patamon on top. She also had a red scarf going around her head and neck and a golden mask covering her eyes. "D'Arcmon!"

"Lunamon digivolve to…" Lunamon turned into a larger, rabbit-like form with more ears than originally, blue armor covering her upper body with appendages sticking out, black gloves adorned with crescents and a metal helmet surrounding a crescent on the front. "Lekismon!"

First, before anything else, Marika had to call for backup, so while avoiding the two boys that were in front of and behind her; she pulled out her black cell-phone and called Johnny Beckenstein out of regulation.

* * *

The three boys were at the game shop playing demos of coming releases when Diego's phone rang, the ringtone being 'Wherever you may go' by 'The Calling'. "Hello?"

_"Hello, Diego. It turns out that you will be needed. The girls have encountered two rogue tamers who are blocking the way into the high-school gymnasium where the emergence took place. Where are you?"_

"At the game store over off Craig and Simmons."

_"Got it. We're sending a vehicle to pick you up. Anything else?"_

"Yeah, I've got the newly emerged Digimon's tamer with me. You want me to bring him along?"

_"How did you find him so fast? And why isn't he over on that side of town?"_

Diego shrugged. "I have no idea. He showed me the digivice, though. I have Nathan with me, too."

_"Good. All three of you can go down there. I'll talk to you later."_

"Alright, bye." Diego hung up. "It turns out we have a mission. The girls are having trouble with two enemy tamers' Digimon and wanted backup."

"Your brother went ultimate, didn't he?"

"I don't know the specifics, but it wouldn't surprise me. Still, he has another tamer working with him. I have to know who would work with him and why."

"You think that maybe he's working for somebody?" Nathan asked.

"Like on that movie the other day," Dracomon added. From over the counter, Eric looked at the little green Digimon, half-chuckling.

"Like my brother would work for anyone. Well, he worked for your dad, but that was only because I did and because it was the only way for him to give his partner some experience. Oh, and he thought Marika was hot."

"Hey, she kind of is," Nathan said.

"She couldn't be hotter than my breath," Dracomon commented.

"Not that kind of hot, Dracomon!"

"So, what card are you looking at, Eric?" Marcus asked the guy behind the counter, who was looking at a brown dragon card with massive wings, startling him.

"Just a card," he said, nervously adjusting his glasses.

"Examon, huh? All I know about him is that he's a royal knight."

Eric nodded before smiling. "Yeah, a powerful one at that."

* * *

The fight was taking too long and the two girls were already exhausted from the heat. They also had an unexpected feature to the battle that they weren't expecting: the tamers fought them while the Digimon duked it out. For Marika, it wasn't too bad, since she studied martial arts at one point as a child. Claire, on the other hand, didn't. Because of this, she had to dodge every strike from Cody who, thankfully, wasn't that fast to begin with.

Soon, though, Claire thought of something. By chance, she had come across a fallen branch beneath one of the trees bordering the soccer field. She picked it up and swung it at Cody, who backed up. "Okay, I don't know what your problem is, but you're going to have to back off, okay?"

"Oh, and leave a cute girl like you behind. Forget it!" Cody lunged forward and Claire struck him in the side.

"Ow! That hurt, lady!" he yelled.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Then the hulking idiot took advantage of the situation and grabbed Claire's arm, causing her to drop the branch. "What the…? Like that's supposed to work!" She kicked the guy in the stomach and he recoiled, causing her to grab the branch that was lying on the ground and attack the brute that confronted her.

Her partner, on the other hand, wasn't doing so hot. Veedramon's strength was only part of the reason why. Her attacks involved throwing balls of water at the opponent which were oftentimes warded off by the blue dragon.

Thankfully, the giant rabbit did have a bit of a trump card. Veedramon was strong, but wasn't all that fast and, taking advantage of this, Lekismon was able to get out of Veedramon's sight for a couple of seconds, long enough for it to be too late for the blue dragon since she had jumped into the air for one of her attacks. "Moon Night Kick!" she yelled, falling down to the ground and landing right on top of Veedramon, slamming him to the ground.

However, the blue dragon quickly got up and counterattacked. "V-Breath Arrow!" he yelled, shooting a blue, arrow-like beam at the Digimon, who barely got out of the way, getting a nasty slice in the arm in the process.

Marika's partner, D'Arcmon, was actually doing decent due to having a flight advantage. She flew up in the air, causing Dobermon to attempt to follow by jumping up a tree, and then she proceeded to attack using one of her swords: La Pucelle, and yelling out: "Dancing Sword!" Her attack caused Dobermon to fall to the ground in an effort to evade it, yet the oversized dog landed on his feet.

"You see, Marika, why Tamer battles can be so exhilarating?" Ezekiel asked. "You have to fight on two fronts, not just one like with bio-emergences."

"What if one side is outnumbered?" Marika asked.

"Well, in that case, the tamers would just have the Digimon battle for them."

"You know, Ezekiel, I wonder what's gotten into you. You seemed so cool when you joined, but now…"

"How am I not cool?" Ezekiel asked. "I'm now independent from the government puppet that is Somnus . Kind of ironic that it was originally set up by a Japanese man who was originally one of the Wild Bunch who created the Digimon back in the eighties."

"Whatever you say. You're working for someone. I can tell that much. Who is he?"

Ezekiel smirked while dodging another blow from Marika. "Why do you say that?"

"Because this whole thing, all these bio-emergences, all your shenanigans, you couldn't possibly be doing it all on your own. The tech needed is incredible."

"Yes, that's true. How, though, are you sure that the bio-emergences are caused by who I'm working for, if that person exists?"

It didn't take long for Marika to think up the answer. "Simple, how come a bio-emergence popped up out of nowhere when Dobermon was fighting Gaogamon yesterday?"

"I'm pleased that you were able to put things together."

"Tell me who it is. Is it one of the Wild Bunch gone rogue?"

"Well, no. The identity of my employer is simple, but complicated, and you won't be able to figure out who he is by name."

"Give it to me!" The words were hardly out of the girl's mouth when Gaogamon appeared with Coredramon close behind.

"Got tired of waiting for a ride," Coredramon commented. "So we're here to join the party!"

Marcus got off of Coredramon and landed on the ground, along with Nathan. Using this opportunity, Ezekiel decided to ask Marcus a question. "So, ready to join?"

Marcus wasn't too hesitant. "Are you kidding me? You're trying to fight girls. There's no way I'm joining a group _that_ dirty!"

"Wait, so you mean the blue card you got was from…" Diego looked at Marcus in shock.

"Whoa, way to take advantage of the villain, Marc!" Nathan high-fived his friend.

"Oh, yeah, man!"

"If that's the case…" Ezekiel pulled out a card and formed yet another blue card. "…then it's time to get serious." Ezekiel was about to slide the card when he got tripped by Marika, causing him to drop the card in the process of falling on his back.

Diego proceeded to slam his younger brother to the ground. "Gaogamon, support Dobermon!" Diego ordered, while attempting to grab the blue card that his brother dropped

"Oh, brother, did anyone ever bother telling you that you're so fat?" Diego rolled his eyes at the thought. He had enough stress at the moment, being irritated at Marcus for the whole thing. If Marcus hadn't have accepted the blue card, this fight probably wouldn't have happened.

"Coredramon! Go for… Veedramon?" Nathan ordered in shock, seeing an old friend of his go after a girl a mere twenty meters from where he was at. "Cody! What the heck do you think you're doing?" he yelled out, causing the hulking madman to glance his way. The split second was just enough for Claire to hit him in the head.

Marcus, meanwhile, was taking advantage of the situation. He went into the gymnasium to find his partner nowhere in sight, causing him to pull his digivice out of his pocket to follow the Digimon's signal.

The digivice led the African-American tamer to a far corner of the gym, where the Digimon was hiding behind some bleachers, scared. It was bear-like, wearing a red baseball cap and had red fur.

"Hey, there, little guy. I'm not here to hurt you." Marcus showed the bear his digivice. "See, Bearmon, I'm your tamer."

The small bear tackled him out of joy. "You came!" he yelled.

Finally, despite all the chaos surrounding the place, Marcus had his partner.

* * *

A/N: The scary thing is that looking things up, Bearmon and Gaomon's Champion forms are a bit similar. Thankfully, the Ultimate and Mega forms are a bit different. I also considered giving him Coronamon, but didn't really like the design of that digimon.

For the most part, the world of this fic is modeled after the year 2003. In case you were wondering, the yearbook in question that the tamers were looking at does exist. It has a disturbing picture in it too.

I do have to apologize for not focusing as much on the digimon as I should. I'm hoping to change that.


	5. New Developments

Chapter 5: New Developments

* * *

Disclaimer: Don't own.

* * *

He was angry; there was no doubt about it. Everything bad today, from this whole idiotic battle to interrupting his shower this morning, was caused by those two. If it weren't for Nathan getting that Digimon in the first place, if it weren't for him being Johnny Beckenstein's son, if it weren't for Marcus and his idiotic deal with Ezekiel, none of this would be happening.

He felt his younger brother's knee sock him in the stomach and recoiled from the feeling. However, he had the blue card and was willing to either use it or tear it in half. He looked over and saw both Gaomon and Darcmon taking on Dobermon and beating him.

At the same time, Nathan was trying to disable Veedramon, but the Champion level Digimon proved more difficult to take on than he had expected. There was also his friend, who didn't seem to recognize him. He had to figure out a way to get past the guy whose Digimon was harder to deal with than most of his level.

Then Bearmon came out of the gymnasium with Marcus close behind.

"Ready, man?" Marcus asked the small bear. "Since it looks like Nathan and Claire are having the most trouble, just attack Veedramon after you digivolve. Got it?"

Bearmon nodded. "Got it!"

"Card Slash!" Marcus yelled, sliding an evolution card through his digivice. "Super Evolution Plug-in S, activate!"

"Bearmon digivolve to…!"

Bearmon's form was far larger and bluer and it had a crescent moon on its forehead, spiked, red gloves on his forearm and red shoulder protectors. "Grizzlymon!"

"Remember to just disable him!" Nathan yelled out as Grizzlymon jumped forward, landing in front of Veedramon.

"Hammer Punch!" Veedramon yelled, not knowing that Grizzlymon was poised for a counterattack.

"Bodystrike Reversal!" the bear yelled, using the attack power of Veedramon to slam into the dragon, damaging him heavily.

"Now, Lekismon! Use your 'Moon Night Bomb' on Veedramon to knock him out!" Nathan ordered, much to the surprise of Claire. The attack worked and Veedramon was down on the ground, out cold.

"How did you…" Claire started to ask.

"The analyzer on our D-Arcs told me how their attacks worked. I also encountered these Digimon inside the online games that I played."

Nathan turned around and found himself face to face with Cody. "What are you doing, man?"

Cody didn't answer, but instead lunged forward with his fist. He had a slight bump on his head from Claire's attack earlier, but otherwise was fine. However, Nathan didn't get out of the way quickly enough, despite trying to block with his arm and got a fist dug into his stomach.

Nathan recoiled from the attack, but was able to get out of the way of the second strike. The third one never came, though, since Coredramon grabbed Cody from behind. "Alright, Cody, I'm sorry I have to do this," Nathan said, pulling out his deck and looking through it until he found the card he wanted. "Coredramon!"

"Yeah, what is it?" the dragon asked.

"I'm going to give you and attack using a card. Don't hesitate to use it on Cody."  
"That's a bit crazy, Nathan. You better have something good in mind."

"I do." Nathan slid the card through his digivice. "Digi-Modify! Lalamon's Sing-a-song activate!"

Then Coredramon used the technique on Cody who quickly fell asleep. Nathan had to cover his own ears so that he didn't get affected by the attack.

"Alright, now we can help Marika and Diego out once we get Cody to the car," Nathan said, yawning.

"Are you alright?" Claire asked.

"I think so. Just a little drowsy. If we stop by a Starbucks on the way home, I should be fine."

"If you say so."

* * *

Gaogamon and Darcmon were actually gaining headway against Dobermon. Even then, Dobermon was able to fit in a few attacks. "Schwartzer Strahl!" he yelled, causing a black beam to come from his mouth and hit Gaogamon head on while Darcmon got out of the way.

"La Pucelle!" Darcmon yelled, pulling out her larger sword to attack Dobermon with.

"Spiral Blow!" Gaogamon yelled after getting up, causing a powerful vortex to come from his mouth and hit Dobermon.

"Great," Ezekiel complained, "This wasn't supposed to be so rough." He pulled out a card to try and form another blue card but it didn't work.

"Let's face it, Ezekiel, it's over," Marika said. "You might as well surrender."

"Yeah, just turn yourself in. There's no use to continuing on, bro," Diego added.

"Yeah, right. You're going to give me that blue card, now, Diego!" He yelled, attempting to punch Diego in the face to take his deck box where he stashed the blue card.

"He's right, Ezekiel," Ezekiel heard though his earpiece. "However, I'm not quite done with your services."

A figure appeared on the roof and tossed a ball down to the ground, smoke coming out of it once it reached the group of Tamers on the ground. It covered the entire area and none of the kids could see in front of them for a few seconds.

"Great, they got away. Gaogamon?" Diego asked, pulling out his digivice.

"Yes, Diego?"

"Let's go after them. I'm sure we can track them down. Most digivices, except for you-know-who's don't have stealth modes so it shouldn't be a problem."

"Uh, dude, what are your plans for when you catch up with them?" Nathan asked.

Diego just ignored him and got on Gaogamon. It was bad enough that Marcus pretty much caused the fight and that Nathan encouraged him. Diego and his Digimon just left.

"Wow, somebody seems to be in a bad mood," Marcus commented, eliciting stares from Marika and Claire. "What?"

"Come on, you played right into his trap. If you guys didn't show up, we'd have been dead meat, got it?" Marika said.

"Hey, he manipulated a villain and now we have another team member," Nathan said, attempting to defend his friend.

"Yeah?" Marika said. "Let's see how long he lasts. For all we know, this guy Ezekiel's working for could have been manipulating us."

* * *

"What is it this time?" Johnny Beckenstein asked.

"There are three bio-emergences happening at once, one in Summerlin, one by the Air Force Base, and the third in the middle of West Side," the black operator said.

"What is the status of the team of Tamers?"

"I'm calling Diego… No answer. Now trying for Marika…" After a few seconds she got her answer. "It turns out that they just finished their battle."

"Great, they won't make it in time. Lilly, call the emergency Tamer."

"Are you sure? Most likely he's working right now," Lilly, the black operator asked.

"Just do it! Actually, call the operative that was supposed to pick up the boys earlier. He should still be in the vicinity."

"Alright, it's as good as done."

* * *

A few minutes later, a quadruped Mega-Level Digimon was flying through the air. It shot a few missiles from its shoulders that flew through the air, hitting the three targets from across the valley.

_"This is Johnny, contacting through satellite uplink. Do you copy?"_

"Yeah, what is it?"The Tamer asked through his data-sphere.

_"You only deleted two of the Digimon. The other one may have been too fast."_

"Got it!" The Digimon flew down to the only remaining digital field, the one by the Air Force Base and performed a peculiar form of digivolution.

"MetalGarurumon! Slide Evolution!" The mechanical, quadruped wolf turned into a more humanoid wolf with massive golden blades. The first form was preferred for travel while the second was preferred for hand-to-hand combat. "AncientGarurumon!" The wolf-man Digimon landed.

"Wow, it's been a long time since we've had to fight anything." The tamer and his partner had been through a lot together. The Digimon went through the digital field, prepared to fight whatever was in there. At first, he didn't see anything, but he knew something was there.

Then he felt something go against his face. It wasn't much and it hardly did any damage, but it was definitely there. "Okay, Gabumon, what is it?" the tamer asked through his data-sphere.

"I can't tell," Gabumon's voice answered. "Something small and fast."

"I guess we have to be fast ourselves."

Time seemed to slow down for a few seconds as AncientGarurumon prepared for an attack. The he struck. The Digimon that emerged was a small, blue mutant Digimon with a thunderbolt on its forehead named Thundermon. Of course, the battle was over in an instant as AncientGarurumon's golden blade sliced through it.

"Well, I'm glad that's over. Now, to get back to work."

"Just a sec," Gabumon said, making AncientGarurumon turn around. The data from Thundermon had reformed into an egg.

"That shouldn't happen, at least not in this reality," the Tamer commented. The digital field started to disperse, revealing a crater where the missile had struck earlier. They were in the middle of a park on the far northeast end of town. AncientGarurumon fastened the two blades to his back and walked over to the egg to pick it up. "Johnny Beckenstein, can you still hear me?"

"_Yes, what is it?"_

"I think you should see this."

* * *

"Great, we've got a new mission," Marika said, hanging up her phone.

"So, what are we going to do now?" Nathan asked.

"Well, we're going to go on an egg hunt. It turns out that the Digimon that were deleted by our Tamer-on-Call all turned back into eggs after being deleted."

"What the… No way, man! That's just jacked up," Marcus responded.

"You willing to come with me, Claire?" Marika asked the girl, who was recovering from the battle.

"Huh? Yeah. As long as there's no fighting involved," the girl responded, somewhat sullen from the battle that had just finished.

Marika smiled and put her arm around the blond girl's shoulders. "Don't worry; I know what you're going through. There shouldn't be any fighting this time."

"So, what about Cody?" Nathan asked.

"Great, um, you guys take the car while we take Darcmon. I hope that what's-his-face took the egg he found back, because there's no way we'd get both in time."

"How about this, we each get an egg while the driver takes Cody to Somnus ."

"Sounds like a good enough idea to me. You guys willing to get the West Side one while we get the one in Summerlin?" Marika asked, "Please?"

"Might as well," Nathan responded. Nathan, Marcus and Bearmon took Coredramon while the girls and Lunamon took Darcmon.

* * *

Diego was continuing on with his hunt for Ezekiel when he road Gaogamon down a street in an industrial area. When he got to a turn, he checked his digivice for the location, he had lost him.

"Great!" Diego exclaimed. As far as he could tell, there was absolutely no sign of the other boy.

"So, what now, Diego?" Gaogamon asked.

"Let's just go home. I can e-mail Beckenstein my report. Later on, we can check this area."

* * *

Ezekiel's employer walked into the building and activated the defenses. There was already a dampening field that prevented the Tamers or Somnus from tracking the two of them down here by their digivices. Still, the air was tense.

"I failed you, Blaine," Ezekiel admitted.

Blaine wasn't mad, though. In fact, as the armor disappeared and the mysterious man took the suit off, still being obscured by the shadows, he gave a rather unexpected response. "Actually, Ezekiel, I wouldn't call this a failure. This wasn't part of the plan to begin with. Even with the loss of Cody, my plan is still going on."

"Yet, we don't have a team."

"Yes we do, Ezekiel. In fact, due to this debacle today, I can move on to a more interesting part of the plan. You see, Marcus wasn't supposed to get his Digimon until next week after Nathan and Diego settled into their roles, nor was he supposed to get a Bearmon, either. I was intending on giving him a Shoutmon as a partner. Oh well, Shoutmon are rather annoying Digimon anyway."

"I apologize for my lack of knowledge, but what's a Shoutmon?"

Blaine turned away from Ezekiel. "Of course, you wouldn't be expected to know what one was." Blaine stared into the darkness, while typing a few keys on his massive computer.

"What's going on?"

"It seems my partner is trying to contact me."

* * *

The group all made it back to Somnus headquarters after about a half an hour. It took some work and Nathan and Marcus had to call for a car to pick them up since they didn't know the way to Area 51 other than it being north of Vegas. That and it was hot outside so they goofed off at some game store for a few minutes.

Unfortunately for Nathan and Marcus, Johnny Beckenstein was absolutely furious. Of course, when Beckenstein was angry, he didn't show it. Nathan knew his father was angry, because he was quiet, eerily quiet. It was as if the middle-aged man was going through various methods of punishing his son and didn't have to voice them.

"Hey, dad, we've got the egg you wanted," Nathan told him cautiously. He shook slightly, putting the egg on the table along with the other two. Marika and Claire were sitting around the lobby talking about something.

Johnny looked at his son. Oh, the situation was dire: three bio-emergences at once with this unexpected addition to their already growing list of problems. They needed to find the perpetrator of this travesty and figure out how he's doing it. For all they knew, he was using stolen technology from either Somnus or Hypnos. Yet, none of the tech they had could cause bio-emergences.

Johnny's eyes narrowed. He gestured for Nathan and Marcus to walk into his office.

"Wow, I bet he's going to thank us for saving the day again," Dracomon commented.

Bearmon just followed the two tamers quietly into the office. The entire situation was new to him and he didn't have anyone telling him what was going on. He was too afraid to ask and just preferred to try to figure things out from context.

"Marcus, could you shut the door and sit down?" Beckenstein asked calmly and the kid complied. The man sat down at his desk which had a flat-screen monitor on top.

"I'm sure you're wondering why you're in here," Beckenstein started saying. Dracomon looked like he was expecting something good, but those expectations were dashed when Beckenstein started to explain the reason. "I am aware that the battle this morning was because of Bearmon." Bearmon shrunk back.

"Yeah, those two idiots decided to attack the girls while they were getting my Digimon!" Marcus said, all proud.

"And why, may I ask, did they want to get your Digimon?"

"How should I know? They were rogues, man."

Nathan had a terrible feeling, and it got even worse as his dad continued with the briefing. "And how did you bio-emerge the Digimon?"

"Using a blue card."

"Where did you get that card?"  
"Oh, it just appeared out of nowhere in my collection. That's how's Nate got his, right?"

Johnny Beckenstein just rolled his eyes. "Marcus, I know when you're lying to me." He turned the monitor around. "I'm sure you're aware of the details I received in a report from one of my other tamers?"

The two boys looked at the monitor for a second. It was plain as day.

_"It turns out that the whole incident was caused because Marcus (I don't know his last name yet), the friend of Nathan decided to take Ezequiel Guevara's blue card when offered and made his Digimon emerge into the real world. Somehow, someway, the enemy decided to use this to set a trap. Obviously, it was going to be a matter of either Marcus joining the rogues or his Digimon getting pulverized by my brother._

_"In conclusion, if it weren't for Marcus taking my brother's bait, we wouldn't have had this fight and most of us would still be on the north side of town to take on the three emergences this afternoon. That way, you wouldn't have had to call…"_ The next word was past the bottom of the screen.

"You see what I'm getting at?" Johnny Beckenstein asked.

"Uh, yeah," Marcus said. "I guess."

Johnny Beckenstein then turned to Nathan. "So, you supported Marcus even though his actions were incredibly foolish. If something like that happens again, you shouldn't commend your friend for it. As it is, we shouldn't go around causing fights, got it?" Nathan was visibly shaking, but he nodded.

"However, I do have this for you. You managed to deal with your friend from New Mexico without dealing anymore damage than what was already inflicted by Claire. Good job. Oh, and thanks for taking initiative with Diego and Marcus when the car didn't come. There was a car accident on the freeway and he turned up far too late."

Nathan didn't know how to respond. He was so relieved. "Alright, thank you… I guess."

"Don't. You both still have that mark against you and need to learn responsibility. You especially, Marcus."

Marcus nodded.

"Alright, we have a meeting in a few minutes. If you want, you can get a bite to eat in the cafeteria. I'm going to try to get you up to speed on what has been happening the past few years from the first emergences until now."

Marcus' eyes narrowed. Oh, how he disliked boring history lessons. Then again, it wasn't like he had anything else to do.

* * *

Diego reached his house and headed straight for his room, not even bothering to say hi to his mom or younger brother. Gaomon followed him, but stopped at his door. He could tell that his tamer was going through a lot, even though he never had any relations like a human family.

Of course, he had comrades in arms during the D-Reaper invasion, a story that even Diego doesn't know about.

After he finished typing up his report, Diego lay facedown on the bed. He didn't cry, then again, he hasn't cried in years. He just tried to sleep; tried to wish his problems away. Of course, he knew with all the logic in his mind that it wouldn't.

Gaomon just stood at the side of the bed. Giving comfort wasn't something that he was good at. In fact, it made him uneasy.

Diego's mom checked on him real quick but headed back to the living room where her husband was watching TV. She was fairly thin and had her black hair tied back in a pony-tail.

"Something must have happened," the woman commented. "Why don't you talk to him, Geraldo?"

The man spoke in a far thicker accent than his wife's. "I will in a few minutes. Worst comes to worst, I'll talk to him when we go to the gym."

"It's been hard on all of us with Ezequiel missing."

Geraldo nodded. "Don't you worry. We'll find him some day."

Their youngest son looked back at them from the transparent glass kitchen table, before going back to the book he was reading. He looked more like Ezekiel than Diego and had his hair in front combed to the side, though he had some of Diego's soft features.

* * *

The history lesson lasted an hour, but it seemed to take on forever. Nathan tried taking notes in the beginning, writing about the Tamers of Japan, but lost his will to do so after the part about the DexDorugamon incursions that started a month after the Parasimon invasion. That was actually around the time Somnus was set up.

"Now," Johnny Beckenstein said, starting his finishing paragraph, "the current roster for Tamers in Shinjuku consists of the three originals: Takato, Jianliang, and Ruki, as well as later additions, Ryo, Hirokazu, Kenta, Shaochung, Ai and Mako, Taizou, Yuuji, Miki, and Tadashi. In addition, they have the former tamer Juri there for emotional support. They are actually split in two teams with Takato leading one while Ryo leads the other. They haven't gone to the digital world since before the D-Reaper invasion with the exception of Ryo. Currently, only the first four can reach Mega while the others can reach Ultimate if need be. Any questions?"

Marcus raised his hand and Beckenstein called on him. "So, how come all this wasn't made into an anime?"

"Well, you see, at one point, Chiaki J. Konaka was considering adapting the Tamers' experience into a full blown anime. However, considering the influence of anti-Digimon groups, even in Japan, it was decided against. There is also the case that the man who originally brought the idea of the V-Pets and the series to Bandai is currently on an extended vacation and his whereabouts are unknown."

"Just took the ideas and ran with them. What a sell-out!"

The other two, Nathan and Claire didn't bother raising their hands. "Alright. Now, just one other thing: because of recent anti-Digimon activities, you are admonished to keep your Digimon out of sight of the general public. This means, not using them as transportation unless you absolutely have to. I would also recommend letting your parents know you have Digimon. If they don't want you to have them, then you can keep them here at Somnus ."

Nathan raised a hand worriedly and was called on. "I don't have to tell my mom about this, do I? If I do, you'll pay for the phone bill."

Beckenstein sighed. "No, she doesn't have to know. You others, on the other hand... Dismissed!"  
They all got up and walked out. It was already shaping up to be a long weekend. At least Friday was over.

* * *

Ezekiel was playing his guitar on the corner, waiting for money from passerby to drop in his can, when his cell-phone vibrated. His get-up, one that made him look like a Rastafarian with dreadlocks and a funky multicolored hat would fool anybody that knew him if they walked by him. When he finished playing his current song, some song from his superior's computer called 'Calling All Angels' by some band named Train, he called him.

"What is it?"

"It seems an anti-Digimon group in Los Angeles has captured a group of tamers with two others barely escaping. If you want, we can break into their base and claim these as your team-mates."

"Well, that's interesting. I'll come back to the base right away."

"There's no rush. We'll be leaving tomorrow morning. I have a few things to do before then, a few errands to run, if I say so myself. You see, I now have the identity of the mysterious Tamer that can achieve the mega level. He is who I've expected all along."

"So, who is he?" Of course, Ezekiel wasn't surprised when he heard the answer. It did seem like an odd coincidence that Diego was so comfortable around the person. Of course, it was more surprising that the Tamer in question was an adult while most known Tamers were teenagers or younger. In fact, before learning that the Tamer in question was one, Ezekiel thought his brother was the oldest tamer at two months away from turning 15.

* * *

A/N: This was a hard chapter to get through. The next one will be a bit of a breather chapter that will set up the next mini-arc a bit more.

Oh, as always, reviews are greatly appreciated.


	6. Stress

Chapter 6: Stress

* * *

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon…

* * *

_Why?_

He woke up to the call of his father calling him to dinner. He didn't want to get up, but he felt a pair of boxing gloves push and roll him off the bed anyway, causing him to fall down to the floor.

_Why? We keep each other in check._

He got up and glared at the Digimon that was standing on his bed. It was still light outside, being June. The alarm clock on his desk read 5:23.

_He's the social one. I'm the one that keeps him in line._

He turned on the lights in his room and glanced at the deck box that was lying on his desk. He walked over to it and pulled out the cards that were stored in it for safe-keeping. The one on top was the blue card.

_He was going to use this against me… us._

After putting the cards back in the box, he opened up a drawer on his desk and pulled out a series of photographs, looking them over.

"Mast… I mean Diego! You parents want you to be present for dinner," Gaomon told him.

"I know." Diego hesitated for a second, shaking a bit from the stress, and then plopped the photographs onto the desk.

He hasn't told his parents about his meetings with Ezekiel yet, but he would have to eventually. Truth be told, they still don't know the true nature of his work with Digimon.

He was stressed out to the point of just wanting to leave town for awhile. The last time something major happened that stressed him out like this, back in seventh grade, his father took him for a drive and they talked about it. That alone got rid of most of the stress from that incident.

_I'll get him back, eventually.

* * *

_

Nathan swallowed the latest bite of his pizza as he noticed his Digimon grabbing his fourth slice of it, causing him to roll his eyes.

"Hey, we've gotta eat too, Dracomon!" Nathan told him.

"But I'm hungry!" the digimon replied.

Nathan just looked back at his dad, who was cutting his own slice with a fork and eating it. The boy had a question that was on his mind, one that confused him massively. Now was the time to ask it.

"Hey, dad." Johnny nodded for him to go on. "Okay, so there's a tamer around that can go Mega. How come you never use him?"

"Well, you see, he doesn't really want to go on missions at the moment. That's just one reason though. He gave a pretty good point when we first found him though, which was that we need to have a strong team in order to take on anything that may come through the barriers. He said that just having him take on every Digimon around would lead to everyone being complacent."

"Who is he, exactly?"

"That's classified. Same with the identity of his partner Digimon."

Nathan rolled his eyes. "So, where's he from? How the heck can he go Mega when most tamers can't?"

"For the first, I don't know. He was just found at an emergence point one time. He claimed to be from a town on the east coast that we looked up and doesn't exist. How he can go Mega is a good question as well. He apparently spent a large amount of time in the digital world at one point and that probably contributed to it, even though he claimed that he got to that level in the real world by biomerging after his Digimon got beat by another mega-level Digimon."

"Weird."

"Yes. To make things even weirder, he has a different model of digivice from yours. I'm not sure what name they use for it is, though."

"Is it like one from the TV show?"

Johnny Beckenstein shook his head. "Nope. It's a completely different model, although it can use card slash like yours."

The entire thing confused Nathan. In fact, one of these days, he would have to track down that Tamer and find out everything.

* * *

Gaomon sat at the table with the rest of Diego's family. The news was going on in the background with "Digimon in Vegas?" as the headline. Apparently, people actually noticed MetalGarurumon and the various digital fields for once.

"So, Diego, how was your day?" his dad asked in between bites of pasta.

"Decent. Why do you ask?"

"You just went straight to bed when you got home. I hear you went out with some friends."

Diego nodded. "I guess."

"You guess?"

"I don't really know them well enough to call them friends."

That was when his mom spoke up. "Hey, they seemed friendly enough with you to be considered that. It's good to have some _amigos, _Diego."

"Yeah, it's just… I don't know."

"What's wrong?" the dad asked.

Diego shrugged. "It's just, I don't know. They both kind of screwed up today."  
"What happened?" his mom asked.

"Uh, nothing much."

"If it's nothing much, then why you complaining?" his dad asked.

"Well, Nathan can be kind of lazy at times, like yesterday at the pool. And Marcus… well… I don't know. Some guys messed around with him and he fell for it and we had to bail him out."

"Hey, it doesn't sound too major," Diego's dad said. "If something goes wrong, just tell them. Hey, we all have to put up with stuff from one other. How do you think your mom and I stay married?" Diego's mom rolled his eyes at her husband. "She has to put up with me a lot, too much at times."

"Oh, Geraldo," his wife said, laughing.

One thing was sure, human relationships would continue to confuse Gaomon. Then again, he did have to put up with a couple of Digimon that he worked with while fighting the D-Reaper just before getting sucked into this human world.

* * *

Later on, Geraldo was driving down the road with Diego in the passenger seat. It was still bright outside and the heat from the sun would cook them if they were out in it too long. It's a miracle that when riding Digimon, the wind would negate most of the heat. Now, though, it would be too hot even for that.

"So, what else is new?"

"Not much. I was thinking about trying to pick up Spanish on my own since most likely I'm going to take Website Science next year instead." Website science was a web design class.

"Yes? Website Science sounds like a good idea. Your uncle's a computer programmer, you know? Makes good money."

"Uh, yeah."

"Spanish is also a good idea. Remember to try studying the pronunciation. I made the mistake of not studying it in English and listen to my accent."

"Hey, I like your accent." Diego responded, smiling a bit.

"That's because you're my son. It's pretty grating on the ears of people when they first meet me, though. Of course, people who speak bad Spanish sound terrible too. So, how do you plan on doing it? Learning Spanish, I mean."

"I guess I'll just look at some books at the bookstore after we work out."

* * *

Gaomon was busy on Diego's laptop computer, typing up some 'fan fiction' that was basically a memoir of his time in the digital world and human world before meeting up with Diego. He still shuddered when he though of the events that lead to his being Diego's partner. He had been wandering around the north part of town when a group of high-schoolers cornered him, yelling obscenities at him and telling him to go back to his own world where he came from.

The thing was that he couldn't. That didn't dissuade them one bit though, and they proceeded to beat him up until someone from a nearby house intervened. Unfortunately, after the kids dispersed, the person realized he rescued a Digimon and left him there, all battered.

Luckily, Diego and Ezekiel were headed home from school when Diego encountered the poor Digimon. Knowing that the hospital wouldn't know what to do with him, the two just brought him home and set him down on Diego's bed. It took the Digimon days to recover while Diego slept on the floor, but eventually he did.

That was what led to Diego's digivice forming and to the guy becoming a Tamer, much to Ezekiel's dismay.

Gaomon was about to finish typing on the computer when the door to his partner's room opened. "Uh, what are you doing?" asked the kid that opened the door, causing Gaomon to minimize the window on the screen.

"Uh, nothing. Is Diego home yet?"

"No, he just left a half-an-hour ago," Diego's youngest brother replied.

Gaomon shut down the word program and then the rest of the computer, closed it up and put it away where Diego usually keeps it, partially to keep away from his younger brother who, knowing him, would probably download some virus or something like what happened to their parents computer.

"What do you want?" Gaomon asked, putting his boxing gloves back on.

"Oh, nothing. I just want to know what's up with Diego. He's hiding something, I know it." Gaomon glared at the boy. He didn't want to deal with him, especially since he wanted a partner himself, even going as far as trying to take Gaomon with him to school.

"Leave me alone," Gaomon said.

"He found Ezekiel, didn't he?" the youngest brother didn't bother with the Spanish pronunciation like the other two, which constantly got on the nerves of Ezekiel. Strangely enough, Ezekiel didn't care if his friends used that pronunciation or gave him some bizarre nickname.

As far as the question is concerned, Gaomon didn't really feel like answering it. He wanted to get away from the kid, though, so he answered him. "Yes."

"Okay, where the heck has he been, huh, bud?"

"We were able to track him down to somewhere south of the Strip. However, after awhile, the signal from his digivice disappeared."

"Figures. Ezekiel was always resourceful when he wanted to be. I'm surprised he didn't try running off to California or South America or something."

"Fernando, don't you have homework to do or anything?"

"No, I'm still in elementary school. Some friends are coming over, though, so we might go swimming. You want to come along?"

"No." Gaomon didn't like water one bit. In fact, he wondered how humans showered every day.

* * *

Claire was visibly shaken by the battle earlier that day. The entire situation was one that she didn't expect upon becoming a Tamer. What made her feel worse was that the boy she fought was brainwashed and she purposely hit him on the side of the head.

She sat on her bed, reading a book but merely glossing over the words. She didn't normally have this much stress in her life and wondered if it was actually worth it joining Marika and the other Tamers. Heck, she and Marika didn't even have much in common.

Lunamon was on the other side of the room, dusting. Claire didn't want her Digimon doing her work, but she insisted for some reason. Her room wasn't too much to deal with: her bed was on the right side of the doorway and her closet on the opposite wall. There was a window on the far end of the room as well and the walls were painted bright pink and covered in posters of boys and boy bands.

"So, Lunamon, do you think it was a good idea for me to join the Tamers?" she asked.

Lunamon looked at her Tamer, surprised by the question. "Of course. Sometimes I feel like I don't have anything to do around here and I'm really bored." While Claire was in school, Lunamon usually did nothing but organize the house and watch soap operas. "Are you having second thoughts for some reason?"

"A little. That fight against that boy earlier took a lot out of me."

Lunamon understood. As a Digimon she was somewhat expected to fight; it was in her blood. Yet, as a human, Claire wasn't the type. Heck, for most humans it takes something like desperation or patriotism to fight. Digimon don't have the latter concept, though desperation was a common trait.

"Don't worry. I'm sure most of the time you won't have to get involved."

Claire hoped not.

* * *

Diego went through his exercises half-heartedly, despite the amount of weight lifted being increased this week. Constantly thinking about his brother was only offset slightly a little later on when he spotted Eric on the treadmill.

He and his dad were finishing the last bit of their workout when the blond-haired giant came over and talked to them. "Hey, what's up, Diego?" Eric asked. Another blond guy was close behind him, this one a lot quieter.

"Not much. Just finishing our workout, that's all. You?"

"Pretty much the same. I just came here after work with a friend of mine. So, this is your dad, huh?" Eric shook hands with Geraldo.

"Yes, you're the game shop guy, right?" Geraldo asked.

"So that's what Diego refers to me as, huh? Yeah, I at least work there. It's a job, I guess. This is Jake, by the way," he said, pointing to the other blond guy who was in his workout clothes. He quickly shook the hands of both Diego and Geraldo.

"Good to meet you guys."

"Likewise," was Geraldo's response.

"So, I'm going to go to the steam room. You headed there?" Eric asked.

Diego nodded and so did Geraldo. "Might as well. I always soak in the Jacuzzi afterwards too," Geraldo said.

* * *

"So, did you hear any of the rumors?" Eric asked Diego. The two of them were in the sauna and Eric was just wearing blue gym shorts while Diego wore blue shorts and a black shirt. On the other side of the room, Jake and Geraldo were talking.

"What rumors?" Diego asked.

"Well, I hear that those anti-Digimon groups somehow managed to get Bandai to stop producing the cards despite how they've been selling like hotcakes.

Diego was surprised at that. "And just as they've become more useful than just playing cards."

"To you and the other tamers, maybe, but for non-tamers they're just cards, unless someone gets lucky enough to get a blue card and become a tamer. Tamers are rare, though, and other than you guys, they're just rumored in this country."

Diego paused for a second. "What about your group?"

Eric chuckled a bit. "That… was way different. You know the answer to that question."

"What, other than the non-existent hometown of yours? Are you from another dimension or something?"

"That's what I think. You see, I lived through this time period we're in right now and we didn't have a D-Reaper to deal with. Our group got together in 2006 and fought an enemy in a digital world that's different from what it was described as being like in your world. A month ago, I woke up in the year 2003 in a world where I didn't exist and as far as I know, none of my friends do either."

Diego thought about that and still didn't believe it. "That's impossible. How can we be sure that these other dimensions, these parallel universes actually exist?"

"Well, the only other tamer I know of that is in the same situation as I am is Ryo Akiyama." Diego was shocked at the mention of the name.

"Yeah…? How would you know that?"

"There are more seasons of Digimon in my world than in yours. Let that sink in for a bit."

That was about the time that Jake walked over to where Diego and Eric were talking. Diego looked at the man, blond hair and goatee, blue eyes, and a face that seemed somewhat familiar. He was also wearing purple swim-trunks. "So, I hear you're going to try to learn Spanish."  
"Yeah, you talked to my dad about that, huh?"  
Jake nodded. "Oh, yeah. I'm actually fluent. Speak with no accent either."

"Alright, say something."

"Hablo con soltura y sin acento. Quiero ir a un país de habla española pero tengo muchas cosas aquí que necesito hacer. Quiero que tu padre me dé datos sobre el país de su origen."

"What did you say?"

"What I just said in English and that I wanted to go to a Spanish speaking country. I also said that I wanted your dad to give me information about his home country."

"You sound like a Mexican," Geraldo said from across the room. Strangely enough, it wasn't intended as a compliment since Geraldo didn't particularly like the sound of the Mexican accent, which was one of the reasons why he didn't watch TV in Spanish.

"Thank you," Jake shot back.

"You should totally listen to this guy, man," Eric said.

"What would you recommend?" Diego asked.

"Well, learn the pronunciation. I'd recommend the Mexican or Columbian accents since they're both fairly neutral. Also, most non-native Spanish speakers tend to slack on that way too much. Then there's the grammar: don't neglect noun gender or verb conjugation including things such as the past tenses and the subjunctive. I'd also recommend reading as soon as possible. Heck, do stuff like read two pages out a novel every time you're on the john or something. You'd be amazed how far that can get you, even though you won't understand much in the beginning."

"Alright, where should I start?" Diego felt a compulsion to grab a note-pad and jot down everything that this guy said.

"Well, I saw this book at the bookstore called 'Spanish for Absolute Beginners'. Start there, it's simple, it'll get most of the basics such as noun gender down. After that, I'd recommend going through a Spanish verb workbook while increasing your vocabulary and starting your reading."

Diego nodded. He was definitely going to need that notepad right about now.

* * *

It was about that time somewhere else that Marcus was feeding Bearmon some leftovers. He knew that his parents wouldn't like him having a Digimon in the house, so he told the Digimon to pretend to be a stuffed toy as long as anyone else was around other than him. Of course, being Bearmon, this was going to be kind of difficult.

"Alright, man, here's your food," Marcus said, bringing a Tupperware container in that was filled with Spaghetti and meatballs. He and his siblings tended to eat a lot so his mother or father, depending on what day it is, made large amounts of food. Because of this, there were always leftovers and so it wasn't like Bearmon was going to be starved. Though, his family didn't exactly have a lot of money, so he was worried that would be one of the reasons they'd reject Bearmon.

Bearmon dug into the food and ate it all quickly, not even leaving a single drop of tomato sauce in the container.

"Was it good or what?" Marcus asked.

"Yeah!"

"Alright, man, that's good. My mom's a great cook, so you shouldn't have anything to worry about, man. So, what should we do, huh?"

"Dracomon told me about something called video games." Unfortunately, the game consoles were in the room that the bedrooms were all connected to.

"Maybe we can do that a little later on. For now, we can watch a movie or something. How about that?"

"Yeah!"

* * *

Things weren't going particularly well with Gaomon ever since his tamer's little brother decided to attempt to make him join in on swimming. Number one: Gaomon didn't like water. Fernando didn't respect his wishes when Gaomon was knocked into the pool. Number two: Gaomon didn't like cold water. He had no idea why humans kept their pools at a freezing cold 80 degrees. Then there were the kids. Gaomon didn't particularly like them that much, especially since they all reminded a little too much of his close encounters with death at the hands of roving bands of kids during his time before meeting Diego.

Of course, he had no choice in the matter. It was a matter of either being inside and doing nothing while breaking the kid's feelings or the alternative: being forced into playing childish games by the kid and his friends.

There were five of them and one of him, do the math.

* * *

Diego was zipping up his backpack after changing when Jake commandeered him in the locker room. "Hey, just one last thing."

"Okay," Diego said, in a hurry.

Jake opened up his locker, pulled something out of his gym bag, and handed it to Diego. "You might want to check this out. It's a DVD I burned with the first course I used on it along with a couple of Spanish reader's I got for free off the internet."

Diego looked at the disk that was inside a case. "Is this legal?"

Jake nodded. "Oh yeah. They're all public domain. Just go through the first couple of lessons in that course a couple of time and you'll have a pretty decent accent. The rest of it's a bit advanced for a beginner, though, so just save that for later."

"Okay, thanks."

"No problem," now Diego just had to wait for his dad for a few minutes. Since Diego didn't bother with the Jacuzzi, he just got dressed to leave and his dad came in a few minutes later and went to the showers. "So, what do you do for work?"

"Eh, I just work with stocks. I also do a little bit of programming on the side," the man started to change, so the two guys faced away from each other. "Not much to it, I guess."

"Yeah. How'd you meet Eric?"

"Well, I just happen to frequent the game shop he works at. That and we constantly run into each other here so we started hanging out." With that, Jake was done with changing. "Don't have too much to do. I'm kind of bored, actually and wouldn't mind getting an actual job or going on a trip somewhere."

Diego nodded. For some reason, he felt more sullen than usual. Maybe it was Jake's example of independence that was doing that.

"You alright?" Jake asked.

Diego shrugged. "I guess."

"You guess. Okay, man, I hate to pry, but what's bothering you?"

Diego had to find a way to organize his words so that the man couldn't figure out that he was a tamer. It was bad enough that MetalGarurumon appeared on TV earlier that day and that Diego and Eric talked a little bit about it while they were in the sauna. "Well, my younger brother just ran away from home and I ran into him earlier today."

Jake had this look of sheer realization on his face. "Whoa, that's pretty tough. I had a rebellious older sister that ran away from home a few times and eventually moved out. Okay, how old are you? Seventeen?"

"Fourteen going on fifteen."

"Oh, sorry, I guess I aimed a bit high. Well, I guess going out of town using your car to escape and vent off stress wouldn't be an option."

"No, not really." Diego remembered one time where his dad did just that and took Diego along to get over what was going on at school at the time. They made it all the way to the town of Tonopah to the north-west of Vegas and then headed back, talking along the way. Maybe it was a shot. He had been getting this urge to go back to his hometown of Oxnard, California for a few days to visit some friends.

Still, he didn't really want to get his dad upset because of Ezekiel, though he'd have to break it eventually, probably even that night.

"Thanks for the idea, though," Diego finished.

"Hey, I'm always there to help. That's what being a friend's about isn't it?" That struck Diego. How much had he really been helping out his friends? Heck, after Ezekiel disappeared off the face of the earth, he had actually been isolating himself from all his friends, even genuine ones such as Nathan, who despite not thinking about what he was doing still wanted to hang out since he saw Diego as somewhat respectable. He felt a pang of guilt run through his upper body from that.

"Whoa, sorry if I accidentally hit a nerve."

"No problem," Diego faced him; putting on the best fake smile he could possible make. "Thanks for everything."

Jake nodded. "You're welcome." Jake was about to walk toward the exit of the locker room when Diego stopped him.

"Hey, do you mind if I have your cell phone number?" he asked.

Jake was a bit weirded out by this, but he complied. "Okay, it's 702-555-1947. Just call it and I'll put you in."

"Another thing, what's your last name?"

"¿Mi apellido? Battaglia."

"Alright, Jake Battaglia. Got it."

"Great, just text me sometime, I guess."

Diego nodded, before turning around to see his dad in a purple towel, putting his trunks through the swimsuit water extractor. That meant that they had a few minutes before they left.

* * *

After leaving the gym, the two went to the bookstore. "Alright, I got it," Diego said, picking up a large book off the shelf. "Looks like a pretty decent method. I guess I'll take this book here. He recommended a verb workbook."

"Well, it's good you're taking it seriously, son. So, are you up to me nagging you every day to make sure you've been doing your Spanish?" the middle-aged man asked.

"Go ahead. I might need the encouragement." Diego then walked toward the check out, but not before accidentally running into a girl who was obviously distracted by the manga she was reading. The two practically tripped over each other and fell down to the ground. "Whoa, I'm so sorry!" Diego said, getting up and holding his hand to help the girl up. She held onto it and was lifted up and she looked Diego straight in the eye.

"Are you kidding, that was definitely my fault," the girl said. Diego squatted down and picked up the manga along with the books that he had dropped and handed the comic to the girl. She was of Latin-American descent like he was, though she was most likely Mexican, unlike him. Her hair was wavy and she had on glasses as well. She looked on the ground and picked something up. "I think you dropped this," she told him, handing him his digivice.

She wasn't supposed to see that. "Oh, thanks. Like I say, I'm sorry about what happened."

"It was my fault. You weren't the one reading and walking at the same time. Not to mention, that was kind of a blind corner." Diego's dad was looking at the two of them, trying not to laugh.

"Oh, well, I guess we should have both looked where we were going. See you around." She looked on as the boy and his father headed over to the check-out line, and realized upon his putting his digivice in his pocket that he was probably a Digimon Tamer.

The thought excited her so much that she couldn't contain herself and walked off with the manga to find a place to sit down. She didn't really read it though, since she couldn't stop thinking about him. _A tamer? That's so cool._ She had seen the news reports on TV so she knew that there was at least one tamer in town. Secretly, Digimon was what got her into anime in the first place.

She found herself shaking at the thought. It was as though she had a crush on the boy because of that, even though he wasn't nearly as good-looking as any of the guys in the manga she reads.

Now if only she had a cell-phone so she could text her friends about it.

* * *

Diego couldn't sleep that night. Gaomon was sleeping soundly at the foot of his bed despite being tortured repeatedly in the pool by Francisco and his friends. Diego got up and decided something. He had a friend in Oxnard that he could visit, but he had second thoughts on leaving the house behind. He knew that he would have to leave a note and call them every day he was there. He would also have to explain Ezekiel. It wasn't smart, but he couldn't stand being around there with all that stress. He had to vent it somehow, and despite going over a few lessons in that book he got, studying Spanish wasn't the way to do it.

Not that the book was bad. The lessons were really good and Diego found himself enjoying it despite their simplicity. They consisted of teaching only one thing each lesson, whether it was a new word or form, and Diego felt that he could complete most of the book in a matter of days, despite having nearly 200 lessons. He did most of the exercises in the empty part of a math notebook he had from school and he would probably do that with the follow-up as well. He had also put the courses from the DVD on his computer and attempted to do the first lesson.

Diego reached inside his deck. There was the Blue Card, still there from that afternoon when he had stolen it from Ezekiel.

Now he had an idea. Coming up with this, he packed his backpack with a couple days worth of clothing, the books for Spanish, and his laptop that he had spent a summer saving up for along with its necessary peripherals. After that, he wrote a lengthy note and left it on the kitchen table, detailing where he was going and when he would get back. He also said everything he could about Ezekiel.

Now for the hard part. "Gaomon, wake up," he said, rousing the anthropomorphized dog, who woke up groggily.

"Master, it's past one in the morning."

"That shouldn't matter. I want to go to Oxnard tonight."

The dog yawned. "Do I look like I have the energy for this?" Diego showed him the blue card. "Surely you must be joking."

"I'm not, now let's leave. Just so you know this doesn't count as your first time going to Ultimate. I have to actually create the blue card myself for it to." Gaomon nodded and then, complying with his partner's wishes despite not liking them, he followed the teenage boy out of the house.

Then Diego slashed the card and a massive amount of energy flowed through his Digimon. A few minutes later, the two of them were off, flying through the air and having a full view of the bright, endless city before them.

* * *

A/N: Well, there you have it. I think that's my best chapter so far. Tell me what you think. Please. Reviews are nice. Don't be shy.

The whole learning Spanish aspect was something that I thought would be fun for Diego's character and his development. He's kind of a perfectionist and like the chapter said, he tends to isolate himself, being afraid of working with people. Heck, Ezekiel was the people person and the one who was actually social, so you see how they would have complemented each other.

Of the chapters of this fic, I actually like this one the most since it for the most part develops one character, while working with the others every so often. The last five chapters were kind of a mixed bag (I'm kind of tempted to rewrite them), but this one was pretty decent.


	7. Steven and Ryudamon

Chapter 7: Steven and Ryudamon

* * *

Disclaimer: Don't own Digimon, just the OCs.

* * *

**Saturday, June 14, 2003**

The boy felt the warm wind beat against him as he applied sunblock to his pale skin. Here he was, looking over Las Vegas from the mountains to the north. He had never been here, but he dreamed of coming here.

"So, what are we doing here?" his partner Digimon, a large, yellow champion-level dragon with black armor asked. The Digimon, Ginryumon, walked on four clawed legs.

"We're going to find him. The description has to be him," the tamer said, looking into his mirror. "I know most of the time those anti-Digimon websites are a pile of garbage, but this has to be right. The description matches him exactly."

The partner nodded. "I don't know. It was actually a pretty vague description."

"Still, there's some hope that he went here. I gotta go check, especially if we can't go home right now."

The tamer looked at his Digimon with his blue eyes. "At the very least, we can try to find the other Tamers in this city. I read that there were several of them."

* * *

Nathan felt a rush when he received his new cell-phone. Heck, he had no idea that that was the one of the reasons they went to Fry's electronics that day other than getting a replacement monitor for his computer. He looked at the device: a flip-phone with a large screen and a full keyboard that could be accessed by sliding the phone so that he could send text messages.

"Alright, now, don't go over your minutes, got it?" Johnny Beckenstein told him.

"Yeah, I know. Thanks for the phone, though." Luckily, Beckenstein already put a number of contacts in Nathan's phone including Marcus, Diego, Marika and Claire. Nathan decided to dial Marcus' phone, which was his home phone after a few rings, Marcus' mom came up and then Nathan asked to talk to Marcus who was woken up by the phone ringing.

"What's up, man?" Nathan practically yelled into the phone.

_"Nothing much; you just woke me up!"_

"Yeah, I just got a cell phone."

_"Sweet, man. How much you paying a month?"_

"Nothing. It's a government phone since we're tamers."

_"Oh, man, that's awesome. When am I going to get one of those?"_

After that conversation, Nathan decided to send a text to Diego after calling him and getting no answer. At the moment, he was walking out of the store with his father just ahead of him. "So, what now," he asked his father.

"Now, we go home."

* * *

Dracomon didn't like staying at home alone, but there he was, playing video games. He saw Nathan play the game in question the day before. It was some type of game called an RPG. Dracomon decided to play his hand at it, even though it required basic reading ability to play.

He could understand everything that they were talking about. Somehow, he could read it.

Apparently, being born from an American-made Digimon game meant that he could read English automatically. It was something he didn't expect by a long shot and neither Nathan nor his father knew about it. Still, he had to break out a dictionary sometimes to understand some terms.

Another unexpected thing happened just as Nathan was walking through the front door. "Oh my god, Sephiroth killed Aeris! That…"

"Since when could you play Final Fantasy?" Nathan asked, causing Dracomon to look at him with an incredibly shocked look on his face.

"Can I go out of the house again yet?" Dracomon asked, shutting off the game console. He was going to have to start the scene over again.

"Uh, no. How could you play that game without knowing how to read?"

"I can read."

"How come you didn't tell me?"

"I didn't know."

"How was your morning, Dracomon?" Johnny asked as he was walking into the house.

"Sephiroth killed Aeris. The nerve!"

"He was playing Final Fantasy VII," Nathan said, stating the obvious. "Oh, and he didn't know he could read."

"Well, that saves some work. You know Gaomon had to take literacy classes when he got to the real world."

"Hmm… How long has he been here?"

"Honestly, I don't know. He's been here a lot longer than the time he was partnered with Diego."

* * *

Later on, Marcus came over to hang out. Nathan was surprised to see his friend Marcus so annoyed. The two were with their partner Digimon, sitting on the couch and trying to figure out what to do the rest of the day, and it seemed like Marcus was fuming. "Uh, what's going on?" Nathan asked.

"Bearmon…"

"Yeah, what about him."

"He ate all the food in the house last night! Man, now my mom's going to have to go get some and restock everything. Heck, even all the seasonings are gone!"

"Whoa, that is serious. Heck, even Dracomon doesn't eat that much."

"Yeah, that's good." Marcus glared at Bearmon, who was mesmerized by the TV.

"Well, I guess you could always feed him over at Somnus. What do your parents think about him?"

"They don't even know he exists. Alright, man, I'll do that. Man, I really didn't expect something like this to happen."

They did a few other things, such as talk about the day before. Apparently, Marcus still couldn't let go of the fact that Diego didn't like what he did to get his partner. Nathan was starting to see the logic in the guy's objections, but that couldn't change Marcus' opinion of the guy.

However, Marcus did see something about Diego that could have helped. "You know, I probably should have taken him to West Side instead of you."

"Yeah, why's that?"

"Cause he's Mexican."

"He is? I thought he was like Spanish from Spain or something."

"Well, either way, he's not white."

"Um, I thought Spaniards were considered white people. There's almost no difference between them an Italians. Either way, Diego doesn't talk like most Mexicans."

"His family was probably in the States for awhile."

"His parents moved to this country."

"Oh yeah."

"Besides, his mom didn't seem Mexican. And then his dad didn't have a Mexican accent."

"You know, this is going nowhere."

"What's a Mexican? Isn't that a type of restaurant?" Dracomon asked, walking over to the two boys.

"Eh, it's just someone from Mexico," Marcus said.

"Watch, he's actually Chilean or something," Nathan commented.

"Dude, what do Chilean's look like?"

Johnny Beckenstein walked into the room hearing that. "I actually worked with some Chilean's once. Some looked like people from Spain while others were mostly German."

"So, where's Diego from, anyway?" Nathan asked. "Marcus thinks he's Mexican."

"You know, I need to ask him. How about you call him and ask, Nathan?" Johnny sat down in the recliner and changed the channel. Nathan felt that his suggestion was a good idea, so he figured he'd call Diego and offer to take the guy out to ice cream or something. Cold Stone sounded pretty good right now. Maybe after that they could go play some Laser Tag, provided they had the money.

Nathan opened his cell-phone up and called Diego's phone. He simply got an answering machine message.

* * *

Diego was eating some ice cream with a Chicano friend of his who was skinny with dark skin and hair when his phone went off. "That number again," he commented.

Gaomon had a ring of vanilla ice cream around his mouth. He listened intently to the conversation while wiping it all off with a napkin.

"Yeah, who do you think it is?" his friend asked.

"Beats me. So, after this, you want to go play some laser tag?"

"Oh, yeah! You mind if I use your phone to call a few friends. They can meet us there."

"Sure, go ahead."

* * *

Nathan tried again with the home phone. "Hey, is Diego there?" he asked, getting a kid on the other line.

_"No, he ran off to California late last night. Our parents are ticked."_

"California? What's he doing there?"

_"How the heck should I know."_

"So, when's he due back?"

_"The note said a couple of days. Don't know if he's telling the truth or not."_

"Alright, bye. Tell him I called." Nathan hung up after a good-bye from the kid and walked into the room. "Well, Diego's of town."  
"Well, I'll be. He didn't say he was planning on any vacations," Johnny said.

"Yeah, he went to California to blow off some steam. I'd say we should go after him."

"No, leave him alone. He probably needs it with his brother and everything."

"Well, I better get going," Marcus said. "My mom's going to be cooking spaghetti tonight."

"Can I have some?" Bearmon asked, getting up after his partner.

"Sure. I'll try to sneak a bite for you. Just don't raid the fridge again, got it?"

"Hey, I was hungry!"

Johnny smiled at the kid. "Just be careful on the way home," he said.

"Okay, man, I will."

* * *

However, things didn't go as planned. Marcus and Bearmon were being followed and they didn't know until the last second. A number of tranquilizer darts hit them while he was still in Nathan's neighborhood and the two found themselves passed out cold.

"So, this is the first of our Tamers of Vegas, huh? Is this guy on the list?" a man asked with a bit of a foreign accent, picking up Marcus and dragging him into his car.

"No, he's not. There are several black boys on the list but none have his stats. He's far too tall and too old," a woman responded. "Still, are you sure we should be doing this?"

"We've gotta help him. There's gotta be a way to sever the Tamer-Digimon relationship."

"Funny, we follow the list and we don't get anyone with partners and yet when we find a Digimon, the kid wasn't on the list."

The man was done putting Marcus in the car when he walked over to pick up the Digimon in disgust. "Despicable."

"Where are we going to take this one?" the woman asked, starting up the car.

"California would be the best bet. They wouldn't know to look there."

* * *

Several hours later, Somnus picked up a signal from a Digimon emergence. Johnny got the call while he was eating a burrito at some restaurant. They also had a to-go plate for Dracomon. "Hello?"

"There's an emergence on the south side of town again. It's at Southern Highlands Golf Club."

"Oh, great, a golf course. How's Cody doing? You think he can go with us?"

"Tests have shown that he was completely unaware of his actions. He seemed to have a narcotic of some sort in his system but now it's gone. If you want, we can send him in a car down there."

"Yes, that would be all right. We only have him till tomorrow, anyway. Will his partner Digimon fit in the car?"

"We'll just have him use that card to devolve it."

"Good. I'll see him down there. Continue to keep track of emergences. Also, get a hold of Marcus while you're at it. We'll pick him up on the way."

"We're on it." Johnny hung up the phone.

"Let me guess, another emergence," Nathan surmised.

"Yes. Ready to go?"

Nathan nodded.

They stopped by Marcus' place but he wasn't there, which was a mystery. He didn't even call to check in. Since Nathan didn't know where he was, that made the other guy's mother all the more worried. After that, they decided to pick up Claire, who was home.

"What's up?" she asked, getting in the back seat of Johnny Beckenstein's truck, her partner Digimon in her arms. Dracomon was in the other seat.

"Bioemergence," was Johnny's simple response as he pulled out his cell-phone and started driving. He had a suspicion about Marcus so he decided to call for some extra help. "Hello, I want you to send out the emergency tamer to guard the golf course from any unwanted visitors. Also, I want agents on watch at the houses of each of the Tamers."

"Got it, Mr. Beckenstein." After that, he hung up the phone.

"So, how's your day going?" Claire asked.

"Pretty good. I got a cell phone," Nathan bragged.

"Oh, I've had one of those since sixth grade."

Nathan grimaced. "Wait, what? How come I didn't have one, then?"

"Just be glad you have one now, son," Johnny responded.

"So, can I get your phone number?" Nathan asked Claire.

"Sure."

"Just don't constantly text each other, kids," Johnny told them.

* * *

Eric wasn't happy. It was his first day off in a while and he got to spend it with some friends. Anthony wasn't around for some reason, apparently having had to go out of town for an emergency, but there were a bunch of others eating at the restaurant he was at, including a brunette girl sitting next to him when he got the call. She had brown eyes, and was wearing black-rimmed glasses and a bright green shirt.

"So, what was that about?" she asked.

"My side job. There was an emergency and my boss wants some help. To make matters worse, I have to stop by the apartment to go get some tools." Then he turned to the rest of the group, "Sorry, guys, I'll have to take a raincheck!"

"No problem, dude!" one of the guys, a spiky-haired red-head said as Eric ran out the door.

It took him a few minutes to get to his apartment. He lived on the second floor of a building in a massive complex. Opening the door, he called out for his partner. "Come on, Gabumon! We've got some work to do."

The pelt-wearing reptile ran up to him and the guy held out his rectangular digivice and yelled out the phrase: "Biomerge activate!"

* * *

A dome of mist was smack dab in the middle of the golf course. A balding, middle-aged golfer made the mistake of shooting his golf ball into the digital field and, being unaware of what was happening, walked right into it.

Then a massive white wolf with dark blue stripes appeared in front of him, growling. The old man was frightened by the sight of the Digimon and tried to run, but to no avail. Just as he was about to lose a large chunk of his abdomen, another Digimon crashed into the wolf.

"Gururumon, huh?" the Digimon's tamer commented. "Ginryumon, just hold him for a few minutes. We need to wait for any other tamers in the area to get here."

"Are you sure that's wise?"

"Oh, yeah." Then the tamer turned to the golfer. "You get out of here okay? Remember that you were saved by a Digimon Tamer."

The man nodded and then ran off. The tamer turned to the Digimon. "Don't worry, Ginryumon, you're doing a good job."

The dragon was simply wrestling with the wolf. "I need a little more strength."

The tamer was pretty muscular and had red hair. He was also wearing a green button-up shirt over a black shirt and some blue jeans. He pulled out a card from his deck. "Card slash! Attack Plug-in A." he slid the card though the digivice, giving the dragon the strength needed to pin Gururumon to the ground.

"You do remember that the last time we dealt with an emergence it turned out to be a trap, right?" Ginryumon asked.

"Yeah, but this time we're prepared. At least this time we don't have a chance of Jake's partner digivolving into…" Then Coredramon broke through the barriers. "Alright, finish him."

Ginryumon did so, ending Gururumon with a slash to the throat. The Digimon quickly turned into an egg.

Ginryumon came face to face with Coredramon, who had no idea what to do. As the mist dispersed, it became apparent that there were, not one Tamer, but three and their partner Digimon, each with shocked expressions on their faces. "Hey, what's up, guys?"

Nathan was the first to speak and his face changed from shock to a smile. "No much. So, are you from this side of town or anything?"

"Nope, just passing by. Do you know anyone who looks like this?" the unnamed tamer asked, holding up a photograph. Nathan looked at it, examining it. Claire walked over too and so did Cody, who was wearing a full blue shirt instead of a tank top like the one the day before.

"Looks kind of like someone we know, but just a little. He's a lot paler, too," Nathan said.

"So, you don't know this guy? Oh well, thought I'd try the lead," the tamer said. "We got separated a while ago and well, I thought I'd check over here. Heard there was someone with his description here."

"Yeah, well, sorry I couldn't help you find your friend," Claire said.

"No problem," the guy winked at her, causing her to get all giddy.

"So, what's your name?" Nathan finally asked.

"Steven McClosky." Nathan's dad showed up a few seconds later, after the others made their introductions.

"So, there was someone else here," Johnny said dryly.

Steven eyed the man and responded warily, "Uh, yeah. You know these guys, huh?"

"You could say I'm their boss. Well, Nathan and Claire's, anyway. So, who are you? Are you from this side of town?"

"No, I'm just passing through on the way to Cali, looking for someone. You see, that someone may have been kidnapped by some anti-Digimon people."

"Yeah? Why don't you come and stay at Somnus for a little bit. We have something to talk about."

"Sorry, I can't. I'm kind of in a hurry." Steven actually wanted to avoid Johnny Beckenstein since he didn't exactly trust the guy.

"Don't worry, we're not anti-Digimon people. In fact, I helped bring down the D-Reaper."

"I find that hard to believe."

"I know you do."

Steven turned to Nathan. "Do you know this guy?"

"He's my dad. Trust me, if he were with the anti-Digimon freaks, I would know."

"Besides, if that was the case, why would I let these kids go home at night?"

"Thank you."

Suddenly, AncientGarurumon showed up, landing in front of the kids. Ginryumon got in an attack stance. "That was a quick battle," the Mega Digimon commented.

"Indeed it was," Johnny responded. "You can go back to whatever you were doing, now, if you'd like."

"I was having fun, but I don't think my friends would expect me back so quick."

"How about we all head back to Somnus. You kids'll have to de-digivolve your Digimon, though. You should probably head back home, though."

"Who says I don't want to hang out with these guys. You're right though, I should probably head back home. It'll be kind of a boring night. Well, see you guys!" With that, AncientGarurumon flew off.

"Ugh, I was going to ask who he was," Nathan grimaced.

Johnny rolled his eyes. "Okay, kids, if you're going to all fit in my car, you're going to have to devolve your Digimon back to their in-training forms. You think you can do that?"

Nathan nodded. Steven was still suspicious. "Um, I'm not sure if I can."

"If you want to find your friend, you're probably going to need our help."

"How can you help me?"

"Simple, I have hackers at my disposal. They may be able to find who you're looking for."

Nathan slid the devolution card twice and so did Cody and Claire. Nathan then handed the card to Steven. "Just trust us."

* * *

On the way to Somnus, Claire was uncomfortable with Cody right next to her. She was on the right side of the truck while Cody was in the middle and Steven was on the other side. Each of them had their partners' in-training forms in their laps, Lunamon's was Moonmon, Veedramon's was DemiVeemon, Dracomon's was Babydmon, and Ginryumon's was Kyokyomon.

Claire just hoped that Cody would forgive her for what she did the day before and that the boy wouldn't turn into what then. In reality, Cody didn't remember a thing. Then there was Steven who hoped that he knew what he was doing.

It turned out that the red-head could trust the other kids and the one giving them orders. After they got to Somnus, they talked for a little bit while walking, though the guy was still on guard.

Then, they ran into someone unexpected upon opening the doors to the meeting room. A middle-aged Asian man was sitting down at the head of the table, eating some food with chopsticks. He had red hair and a goatee.

Upon seeing the kids walk in, the man got up and walked over to them.

"Mizuno?" Beckenstein asked, prompting a slight smile from the stranger.

"Why yes. I figured it would be time to meet the Tamers of Vegas. Now, which one of you is Diego Guevara?" the man asked.

"Uh, he's not here right now," Nathan said.

"And who might you be?"

"I'm Nathan Beckenstein. My partner is Dracomon, or Babydmon as he is now."

"Good to meet you," Mizuno shook the boy's hand.

"Nice to meet you too."

Mizuno then looked over the rest of the group and walked over to Steven. "You're Steven McClosky."  
Steven was taken aback. "How did you know?"

"Somnus has been monitoring news reports for anything suspicious. You disappeared along with your brother after a massive explosion rocked several city blocks in Denver, Colorado. The force was far stronger than most Champion or Ultimate level Digimon."

Steven still had a look of shock on his face and Nathan was really surprised too, looking at the new guy in disbelief. "You can reach Ultimate?"

"No and none of us did, either. You see, my brother's partner… is far stronger than any Digimon I have ever come across."

That was about the time the door opened again and Eric walked in.

"Eric, what brings you here?" Johnny Beckenstein asked.

"Shibumi wanted me here."

"Wait, Shibumi?" Nathan asked and Mizuno raised his hand.

"That would be me. Well, Eric, it is good to finally meet you. My entire schedule has been filled up for quite awhile."

"What does he want with you?"

Eric was followed in by Gabumon, revealing who he was to the astonishment of the kids in the room. "What did I tell you about revealing your identity to the kids?" Beckenstein scolded.

"Hey, they were bound to find out sooner or later," the big guy responded with a smile on his face.

"As it is, with the type of threat that may be surfacing soon, we will need a unified team," Shibumi added.

"So, what's your brother's partner supposed to be, anyway?" Nathan asked Steven.

"Lucemon." While handing his squarish digivice over to Shibumi, Eric turned his head and looked straight in the guy's eyes.

"Please tell me you're joking."


	8. Uneasy Alliance

Chapter 8: Uneasy Alliance

* * *

Disclaimer: Don't own Digimon, just the OCs that are littered throughout the story.

* * *

"Lucemon, that's a Rookie-Level angel Digimon, right?" Nathan asked.

"Yeah, and a strong one at that." Steven responded.

"You guys have no idea how strong," Eric responded. The entire group looked at him.

"How strong?" Johnny Beckenstein asked.

"Like final boss of the fourth season strong. Like destroy the entire digital world and its moons strong."

"Fourth season? There's no fourth season," Nathan objected.

"There's one where I'm from," Eric shot back. "Digimon Frontier. It was actually the last season I watched. Aired in 2002 and it didn't exactly do well. One can blame the filler and the lack of major character development other than the long lost twin brother and Takuya kind of learning from his mistakes."

"Where are you from?"

"Let's save that for later," Beckenstein said. "Still, this is major. What are the Digimon's digivolutions?"

"Chaos Mode for Ultimate and Shadowlord Mode for Mega."

"No Champion form?"

"Nope, just mode changes, pretty nasty ones too."

"So, how did your brother get this guy as a partner?" Nathan asked Steven.

"Give me something to eat and I'll tell you guys," he said, sitting down.

"We have a potentially world-destroying Digimon out there and you want something to eat?" Beckenstein objected.

"Get him something. I'm sure he spent the past few weeks wondering when he'd get his next meal," Shibumi said, sitting down himself. "Also, get all your tamers together. Something tells me this is going to be an important meeting."

* * *

"Alright, let's start from the beginning: how did you get your partner?" Beckenstein asked.

"It was last year. I was playing a game when my Digimon got brutally defeated while on a mission. That was when I felt a strong desire to help him. I noticed that the card I had in my hand wasn't one of my usual cards, instead it was a strange blue card."

"Yes, the blue cards. It amazes me that they've shown up here," Shibumi said.

"Sliding that card caused my Digimon to emerge into the real world. My younger brother was there at the time and saw the whole thing. He wanted a partner of his own, but neither of us had any idea of how to get one. Not only that but we had a broken monitor and my mother couldn't afford a new one." Johnny glanced over at Nathan.

"When did your brother get his partner?" Beckenstein asked.

"About two months ago, he found a blue card of his own and slid it through his card reader. Since he didn't have a partner lined up, it just stayed there empty for a few days. That was when he got the bright idea of sliding a Digimon card through the thing. I had no idea any of this was going on at the time, though, so I couldn't stop him, but he looked for the strongest rookie Digimon he could find."

"Lucemon," Eric glared, prompting a nod from Steven.

"Exactly. The next day, I found out when I saw him going the opposite direction of our meeting spot when school got out. I decided to follow him and that's what led me to finding him and his partner Digimon. When he found the Digimon, it was like a baby in its personality, knowing very little. I had no idea it would be like that and yelled at him to get away from the angel when he came across it."

_"Relax, this guy's my partner. Don't you get it; I've got a partner Digimon now!"_

"It was sometime after that that we found another Tamer, one that had been taking care of the various Armor-level bio-emergences in the area. Things went pretty well until about two weeks ago, when the anti-Digimon guys found us. They used a bio-emergence as a trap and captured my brother and his partner, taking them by surprise, even causing a dark digivolution. The other Tamer and I escaped north to Cheyenne, Wyoming and then to Rapid City, South Dakota, using our Digimon's champion forms to cover more distance. It was in Rapid City that we found out that we were on an anti-Digimon website."

"That was where I found you," Shibumi said. "I don't habitually visit such sites but I signed up for a tamer-alert newsletter. So, what happened to your friend?"

"Well, when I found the description of a Tamer that was similar to my brother's profile, I decided to investigate, thinking that he might have escaped. So I came here. My friend is still in South Dakota, surviving as best he can. We've tried our best to keep in touch with our parents by e-mail, realizing that telephone lines could easily be tracked."

"Of course, so can e-mails," Shibumi stated.

"Yeah, I made my best efforts not to give away my whereabouts. Anyway, I decided to head this way when, looking on the internet, I found a description of a Tamer in this town that matched my brother. As it was, I was wrong."

Beckenstein decided to speak again. "Well, then, I'll have some of my best hackers track down the location of the Anti-Digimon website in question. We should have an answer in a couple of weeks…"

"On the contrary, I already had some hackers find the location of the website: California," Shibumi told the group.

"California? Where in California?"

"Somewhere in the greater L.A. area. We haven't been able to narrow it down exactly, but that much we know. Apparently the group in question has some sort of blocking program that prevents us from finding them."

"Then let's get going!" Nathan exclaimed.

"No," Beckenstein responded.

"Wait, you mean that one of my closest friends is down there and you say no? Come on, we should go down there, find the anti-Digimon guys, kick their butts and save any tamers they have in custody."

"There's a chance that they may have superior firepower, Nathan. Besides, you can't just go into a place and kill a bunch of people."  
"Hey, I never said anything about killing them. Come on, who's with me?"

Cody raised his hand, accidentally making Claire uneasy in the process. "Cody, you're going home tomorrow and that's final!" Beckenstein objected.

"Hey, come on. New Mexico is boring!"

"I'll go," Steven said. "If there's a chance these freaks have my brother, I'll take it."

"You'll need someone smart along so you guys don't get caught too, so I'm coming along," Marika stated.

"That leaves all our best Tamers gone!" Beckenstein exclaimed.

"Come on, the most powerful Digimon you'll be getting are Champions. Besides, if things get too hairy, then Eric's gonna intervene," Nathan rebutted.

"Actually… how about this, Nathan: you and Steven will go straight to Oxnard, find Diego," Shibumi suggested.

"How do you know he's in Oxnard?" Nathan asked.

"That's where his parents said he was. I called them. It makes sense since the town was where he was born and lived up until a few years ago."

Marika agreed. "Sounds like a good idea for me. Shame, I was hoping to get to know these two boys. The red-head is kind of cute."

Steven's opinion was that she was a creepy Goth chick, but he didn't tell her that. He was just glad she wouldn't be coming along. The blonde on the other hand…

"By the way, I do have an idea of who you can stay with tomorrow night. There's a girl that lives in the Bay Area named Alice," Shibumi indicated.

"Is she a Tamer too?" Nathan asked.

"No, but she has helped the Tamers in the past. Her grandfather even worked with me on the original Digimon project nearly 20 years ago. She won't be too shocked by the sight of your Digimon."

"Alright, cool. So I guess we'll be headed out tomorrow."

Beckenstein still wasn't certain. "Are you sure this is a good idea?" he asked Shibumi.

"They will have to deal with such groups eventually. Besides, if you want peace between humans and Digimon, you'll have to convince such groups that what they're doing is wrong."

* * *

It was decided later that night that both Steven and Cody were going to stay at Nathan's house. Cody wanted to at least hang out with his friend for a little bit while Steven didn't want to deal with the guests' barracks. Strangely enough, Marika had her own room at the base since she was practically living there permanently.

"So, what do you want to do?" The bulky brown-haired boy asked while they were in the living room at Nathan's house. The couch had a bed that could be pulled out and Cody was laying down on that. Steven opted to sleep in a nearby recliner while Nathan was lying on the floor. The Digimon were all with their humans in their in-training forms.

"I don't know. Get some videogames, play them until about three in the morning. Sounds like a good idea to me."

"That might be a bad idea since we have to get up tomorrow to go to California," Steven objected. "But, it's been forever since I've played anything. What do you got?" Nathan walked over and gave the red-head his game collection. "They're mostly RPGs. Wait, you have Digimon World 3, huh?"

"Uh, yeah. I beat Galactimon in about a week. Clocked in 60 hours of game time, too. Hate how you can't do anything after a certain point and… well, I'm too lazy to start a new game to finish all the side quests."

"Oh, so you made the mistake of going into that one room at the enemy headquarters, huh?"

"Yeah, that's what I get for constantly using FAQs on games. I liked the game a lot though. Too bad GameSpot gave it a 4.9. Then again, they seem pretty prejudiced against Digimon, anyway. Best Digimon game ever, in my opinion."

Steven smirked at the thought of him and his brother playing the game non-stop for a week themselves. That was a fun time. "So, do you have any siblings?" Steven asked Nathan.

"I have an older sister. She moved out in '01 after she graduated from high school and now lives in New York. Heck, a few months ago my dad had considered going there to help at Somnus headquarters. I'm glad he didn't since I didn't want to leave all my friends."

"Yeah, moving across country is kind of hard. I actually have four siblings, including my brother. My mom ended up moving us from Connecticut to Denver when my parents divorced about a year ago. It wasn't fun. Heck, I think the other Tamer, Broc, is actually the first real good friend I got there. He's kind of goofy but he's a good guy."

"That's good."

"So, Cody, got any siblings?"

"Nope, I'm an only child."

"He's spoiled like one, too," Nathan joked.

"Heard that!"

Steven chuckled. "Your parents aren't together, are they?"

"No, my mom… eh, let's not talk about that."

"Don't worry, I understand. So, how's this Diego guy?"

"He's nice, though strict. He wrote some nasty comments about me in his reports to Somnus, but other than that… I don't know. I guess I don't really know him that well. His brother's a rogue, though, who tried deleting Marcus' partner." Nathan put his fist in his palm. "If I find that idiot, I'm so going to teach him a lesson."

Steven didn't know what to think of that. _At least he's enthusiastic._

* * *

Dracomon was just outside, watching from the rooftops when Ryudamon decided to appear. Veemon, Cody's partner in his rookie form, climbed up himself. Dracomon sniffed the air, taking in the foreign aromas of the world around him. From what he could tell, the next door neighbors were using some sort of illegal substances and there was a long-haired and overweight cat across the street, glaring at him and practically challenging him to catch it. He felt it was amazing that some pit-bull didn't get it. Several of the neighbors also had pools, something that he wanted to try out as soon as everyone was asleep.

"So, what are you up to?" Ryudamon inquired, causing the green lizard in front of him to look over his shoulder at him.

"Keeping watch."

"Aren't there Somnus agents around? That's what I heard," Veemon commented. Dracomon gave no answer.

Ryudamon looked up at the starless sky. The night reminded him of his sojourns throughout the city where he lived originally. Of course, Las Vegas was a foreign place for him. He would probably end up getting lost here like he almost did a couple times in Denver. Still, he was amazed that there was a place with fewer stars in the sky than that city. It doesn't help that Las Vegas is far brighter.

_I swear that I'll find your brother, Steve. _Ryudamon smirked upon thinking of the redhead.

* * *

The following morning, Marcus woke up in a strange white room on top of some sort of operating table. He thought the entire thing was absolutely bizarre. One moment he was walking out of Nathan's neighborhood and the next he was here.

He looked at everything and made sure he was still intact. He ran a hand through his curly hair and thought, _dang, what happened? _He had a bit of a headache and wondered if that was a side-effect of the drugs that were injected into him.

After getting up, he walked out of the small room he was in, hoping to possibly see Bearmon. Instead, there was a man in a lab coat sitting down in a folding chair in the middle of a hall right in front of his door. The man, who had short brown hair and small, black-rimmed glasses, was writing something down on a piece of paper when he noticed that Marcus had walked out of the room. "Ah, you're awake," the man said in a slight British accent.

"Uh, yeah, so, where am I? And where the heck's my partner?"

"Your partner is elsewhere. My name is Benjamin Holmes and I am one of the scientists at this location. You see, we're here investigating ways of separating Tamers from their partners."

"And why would you want to do that?"

"Simple, to bring things back to normal. Ever since the Digimon have started coming into our world, things have been getting steadily worse."

"Yeah? Come on, man, most people don't even have partners. How many instances of crime caused by Tamers can you think of?"

"None, currently, however if the wrong people get partnered up with Digimon, the results could be catastrophic."

Marcus rolled his eyes. "So you're saying that because of that, you're going to tear Digimon away from people who won't do anything wrong with them?"

"Really, things could change overnight. It is not uncommon for people to go from being kind, law-abiding citizens to hardened criminals in a short time span."

"Okay…"

"I'm sure you want some breakfast. Come with me," Benjamin got up and walked down the hall to the right of the room that Marcus woke up in. In some ways, Marcus wanted to beat the crap out of that scientist, but he realized that wouldn't be an option. After all, there had to be guards around.

* * *

"Here is the cafeteria. Feel free to sit anywhere in here," the scientist said as they walked into a room with numerous chairs and tables. There were only a handful of kids in the room. Evidently it wasn't the usual meal time. For the most part, they were separated from each other. The main exception was some short, brown-haired guy with blue eyes who looked to be about ten, maybe younger. He was wearing a simple orange shirt and some blue pants. The other guy at the table was taller and possibly in his early teens with black hair and dark brown eyes. For some reason he looked familiar, though Marcus couldn't place him. He was wearing a yellow shirt and a pair of grey shorts.

There were three others in the room, a curly-haired redhead who was listening to his headphones, a chubby black-haired guy with rosy cheeks that was reading a book, and a blond girl with blue streaks in her hair that was drawing some picture. In some ways, Marcus wanted to go talk to her, but after getting his breakfast, consisting of a couple of waffles, four sausages, and several strips of bacon, he was called over by the short brown-haired guy to come to his table.

That was when Marcus recognized the black-haired guy. His eyes narrowed into a glare as he muttered his name. "Ezekiel…"

"Good, you remember me," the black-haired teenager responded with a smirk. Marcus sat down right next to the kid with the wavy brown hair. "By the way, this is Davy. He's from Canada."

"Hey, great to meet you," Davy said, holding his hand out to shake, to which Marcus returned the gesture.

"Likewise. Now, what's going on?"

"I see that like me you're a prisoner. You see, they're trying to sever the links between us and our Digimon."

"Yeah? Then why don't they just kill our Digimon?"

"They already tried that with one person. It resulted in him having a mental breakdown from the shock. After that, they've been trying to safely undo the bond to no success. Somehow I get the feeling they'll have to dissect us to find that out."

"Man, I didn't think you were dumb enough to get captured."

"I'm not. You see, I got captured intentionally. I was told there's a tamer here with an extremely powerful partner Digimon. Unfortunately, all I have to work from is a picture of his brother and there doesn't seem to be anyone that looks like they could be related to him."

"Hm, alright. So if you're smart enough to get us out of this joint, then why the heck aren't you doing it?"

"I haven't figured that out yet, either."

Ezekiel was interrupted by the scientist from earlier. "Attention, please, your host would like to have your presence in the gymnasium."

* * *

Marcus didn't want to go, but Ezekiel was headed out there along with the other four kids in the room. Marcus followed the group to the gymnasium and could tell that Ezekiel was busy examining the redheads in the audience from afar. There happened to be one side of bleachers in the gym and Marcus found himself in between the rosy-cheeked fat guy from the cafeteria and Ezekiel, but with plenty of leg room. _Why did it have to be him of all people?_ In turn, Ezekiel had that Canadian kid right next to him.

Eventually, a man with long black hair and pale skin came out of one of the doors on the other side of the auditorium, someone who Marcus felt was beyond creepy, reminding him a little too much of Michael Jackson, an artist that the guy was not fond of.

The mysterious man walked up to the podium in the middle of the gym and spoke into the microphone. "Well, it's good to see that you're all here right now. Currently there are 33 of you here, up two from yesterday when we found Ezekiel Guevara and Marcus Deveraux. Please stand up." Marcus and Ezekiel did so, the former feeling extremely awkward at standing side by side with his enemy. "My name is Desmond Klein and you may know me from movies such as 'Four equals Death' and 'The Alphabet Killer'. You may sit down now. Don't worry; we might be on the edge of a breakthrough as far as finding a cure to your malady." Jeers could be heard from the crowd. "In the mean time, enjoy yourselves, get to know each other."

* * *

Jacob McClosky immediately registered the names of the two newcomers in his head, much like he tried to do with everyone. Of course, he didn't feel much like talking to them; especially Ezekiel who he knew had a picture of his brother somehow. That was a bad sign. He wasn't going to be someone's tool. As it was, he caused enough damage when Lucemon dark-digivolved.

He still hadn't figured out Marcus' personality, though. It was obvious that the guy was a bit of a big eater and despite that, he remained skinny. As far as partner Digimon, he didn't know what either had.

Upon leaving the auditorium, he stuck a drawing of Lucemon in the pocket of a nearby person, letting it stick out a little bit. He figured that since the person had blond hair, he would be a good red-herring.

The twelve-year-old was just glad that neither person figured out who he was. He figured that as long as he hid in plain sight, that shouldn't be a problem.

As it was, it was only ever apparent that he was Steven's brother when they were standing right next to each other.

* * *

Ezekiel spotted the drawing quickly. _Wow, this is far too easy. _The Hispanic boy walked up to the person who had the drawing and said. "Hey, Jacob, how's it going? I see you have a picture of your partner. Can I see it?" The spiky-haired blond guy turned around and glared at Ezekiel, giving him a dirty look with his brown eyes. He was wearing a red hoodie and a pair of baggy blue jeans and the most noticeable feature of his face was a large beak-like nose.

"What do you want, weirdo?"

"Simple, I want you and Lucemon to join my team. First, all we have to do is get out of this place."

"I think you got the wrong guy," the guy responded, turning around and walking off. Ezekiel then proceeded to grab the Lucemon drawing. Unfortunately, he wasn't very stealthy about it and received a punch to the face, causing him to fall to the ground with a bruised cheek.

"Don't you dare touch me, you freak!"

Ezekiel then attacked the boy, who instantly kicked him in the gut and beat him up. Marcus and Davy stood there, stunned at the whole thing.

* * *

_Then again, maybe I shouldn't have done that. Cletus Jurgemeyer is a bit too hotheaded,_ Jacob thought while watching from afar. _Still, it's pretty notable that neither Marcus nor David joined in. At least this gets Ezekiel off my back for a little bit._ Jacob pulled out a music player he found while wandering the grounds of the mansion they were in and turned it on, opting to listen to some Matchbox 20 for a little bit.

About an hour later, Ezekiel was released from the nurse's office. Marcus' question while wandering the complex was who funded it? Then again, the person who owned the place was a movie star who made millions of dollars by starring in slasher movies that he had never even heard of.

* * *

"So, how do I look?" Ezekiel asked upon walking out of the office.

"Terrible, man."

"This means we're allies, right?"

"Not a chance. Somehow I get the feeling that Jacob set you up somehow. Then again, I can't blame him for not wanting you to find him."

Ezekiel smirked. "Oh well, as if that can stop me."

* * *

Elsewhere, Nathan and Steven were playing a game of cards while waiting to leave. Their match was on the dining table in Nathan's house and Nathan was winning, much to Steven's dismay. _I can't believe this guy had it in him. He didn't seem like that much of a strategist when I met him yesterday._

Steven glanced at the combo Nathan performed to digivolve Greymon to BlackWarGreymon. _Of course, I didn't really give him a chance to use any of his abilities in battle. _

Then he pulled another modify card, and wiped the floor with Steven, lowering his life points to 500.

"Looks like you got me in a bind, man," Steven said with a smile.

Nathan smiled back. "I tend to do that. Hey, it's nice to have someone to play against other than Marcus for once."

"You ever played in tournaments?"

"Yeah, a number of them. Won a couple, too. The last one I played, though, I lost against Marika."

"You mean the boy-crazy Goth chick from Somnus?"

Nathan nodded. "That's the one."

Steven shrugged. "She kind of creeps me out."

"Don't worry, I don't know her much myself. She's… interesting, I guess. All I know is that her parents basically kicked her out when she became a tamer."

Cody walked into the room. "Um, guys, you ready to leave?"

Nathan nodded. "Uh, yeah, but where are our partners?"  
Steven's eyes narrowed to slits and he got up to look for them. It turned out that all three Digimon were actually sleeping around the backyard and smelled strongly of chlorine. Apparently they decided to go swimming in the next door neighbor's pool.

"Hey, guys, wake up, it's time to head for the airport!" Steven called out as soon as he got out of the house. Dracomon instantly got up.

"Really?"

Nathan nodded. Johnny already had everything set up to take them all to the airport, where Cody would be dropped off. Before doing anything else, though, the brown-haired guy gave a note to Beckenstein. "Give this to Claire when you can, okay?"

Johnny was taken aback slightly, but he nodded and replied that he would do that for him. The letter itself was one of apology since Cody didn't have the chance to say it to the girl himself. After that, they packed their bags and headed off to the airport. Once they got there, they would split off, Cody flying to New Mexico with Veemon while Nathan and Steven were escorted to California by a member of Somnus.

* * *

"Well, we're here," Nathan woke up to the driver. The blond boy grabbed onto his suitcase and groggily got out of the car. It turned out that they were on the grounds of a stately mansion. Steven got out of the other side of the car and, due to not bringing much along, simply pulled Ryudamon out.

The two were startled by the one that came to greet them, a solemn blonde girl with her hair in pigtails, wearing a puffy black dress. Alice McCoy was there to meet them.

* * *

A/N: Well, that makes three canon characters to appear in the story: Johnny Beckenstein, Shibumi and finally, Alice. Mwahaha!

Feel free to guess who Jacob is. During the next couple chapters, you'll also see tamers from other areas. Most of them aren't even main characters and'll be gone by the end of the mini-arc, though.


	9. The Brigade

Chapter 9: The Brigade

* * *

Disclaimer: Don't own Digimon. Just the OCs.

* * *

**One Week Earlier, Los Angeles, California**

The curly-haired redhead just walked around the area, knowing what to expect. He was wandering the LA area and knew that with his digivice, he'd get caught. Still, this was a mission, and it had to be done to find the location of the missing tamers.

David Symanski, Jacob McClosky, Gwen LeFabre, and Cletus Jurgemeyerwere some of the names he thought up, taken from the website of the anti-tamer organization that they were dealing with, the so-called Sons of Earth. He knew that David was the son of a Canadian physicist who was working with Hypnos to create a portal to the digital world so they had a place to put any bioemerged digimon that weren't deleted. He didn't know anything about the other three, though, but was about to find out.

"Halt!" he heard someone say behind him, glancing at the person with his green eyes. The man was wearing a black suit and tie with a white dress shirt underneath. _Somnus…_The man was also holding a digivice, obviously one taken from a tamer.

"What is it, sir?" He asked, doing a good job at faking an American accent. It wasn't exactly easy for him, being from Ireland and everything. It seemed that as far as the accent spectrum was concerned, the two accents were on opposite ends. Then again, Southern accents were actually worse.

"You're a Digimon Tamer, aren't you?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Where's your partner?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"If you won't tell us, then we'll take the information from you."

"Listen, I'll tell you, but only if you show me that you're not here to hurt me just because I'm a tamer."

The next thing he knew was that something sharp struck him in the neck and that he was on an operating table. He struggled to get his American accent back together. Watching all those cartoons paid after all.

"What is your name?" he heard a voice ask out of nowhere.

"Sean O'Farrell. I won't give you anymore information until you tell me where I am."

"You're a Digimon Tamer. Where is your partner?"

"Even I don't know that one. I had some friends put him somewhere safe." As far as he knew, the plan was working perfectly.

He just wanted to get back to Dublin, and not the one in Ohio. That and he wanted his clothes back. He had a CD player in one of his pockets that he really wanted to use.

* * *

"We have absolutely nothing on him, no date of birth, no name, and no hometown. None of the children we already have know who he is," a woman commented. "I don't think he's even American."

"How could you figure that out?" someone said in an eastern-European accent, rolling his r's and shortening his vowels.

"It's just a hunch. My full reasons aren't really appropriate."

"Keep him here and keep an eye on him," another voice said.

"That we will do."

* * *

**Las Vegas, Nevada**

Johnny Beckenstein was in his office, filing off paperwork and monitoring the operations of his employees. The day was pretty standard so far, a bio-emergence showed up at about 2pm and was easily taken care of. Other than that, nothing much happened.

Of course, that didn't change the fact that Johnny had a lot on his mind, namely the safety of his son. Really, the reason for sending Nathan off to California was to keep him away from the enemy. At the same time, there were Somnus agents monitoring every known tamer, including Nathan and Steven. A couple of agents from the San Francisco branch even traveled to Oxnard to monitor Diego. The agents were meant to look for any suspicious activity, and track down anyone that looked like they were from the anti-tamer organizations back to their base.

Johnny had requested info on the two brothers, Steven and Jacob McClosky and while he was finishing up paperwork on the recent incursions and the patterns in the network that have been getting punctured recently, he got it. A pair of files was given to him by one of his subordinates, who walked off right away to work on another project.

_Steven McClosky, Age: 13, DOB: 7/12/1989_

_ Jacob McClosky, Age: 12, DOB: 4/19/1991_

From what he read, their parents were Laura and Travis McClosky and they divorced two years earlier. They also had three other siblings, two sisters and a brother that was older than Steven. The two had relatively average grade point averages, except that Jacob's was actually a bit higher than Steven's. They even competed against one another in a tournament, with Jacob actually defeating Steven in a match.

* * *

**Just outside of Las Angeles, California**

Jacob was relaxing on a hill in the compound that he was trapped in. The grass actually felt good on his back, even though he couldn't stay out here very long because of his fair skin. He just laid there, his thoughts wandering until they were interrupted by a female voice.

"Hey, Jacob!" Jacob looked through his circular sunglasses at a girl with blonde hair tipped in blue streaks. She was wearing a purple shirt with a skull on the front and tight blue jeans.

"Hi, uh, how are you?"

"Doing pretty good. I could see you were bored too, so I thought I'd say hi."

Jacob wasn't impressed. He couldn't even remember the girl's name. Of course, his hormones hadn't kicked in yet so he didn't even give her much thought. "Uh, that's nice," he responded, getting up to walk away. "I just realized I had something to do. See you later."

The girl just rolled her eyes. _How are we supposed to get out of here if we don't work together?_ She thought, sighing.

* * *

**Just outside of San Francisco, California**

Nathan and Steven entered into the McCoy's large house, Alice leading them in. After putting their stuff in a couple of upstairs bedrooms, the two boys and their Digimon walked downstairs to see the girl sitting down at the kitchen table, reading a book while sipping some hot tea.

_I just had to run into another creepy Goth chick, didn't I?_ Steven asked himself silently. Alice then glanced at the two, first Steven, who sweated profusely, and then Nathan, who had this unhealthy grin on his face.

"So, you're a tamer?" Dracomon asked.

Alice shook her head and then looked back down at her book, somberly. "No… I had… a companion, but we weren't actual partners. We helped the Tamers in Japan reach the Mega stage and then…"

"He's dead, isn't he?" Nathan deduced. Alice nodded.

"He sacrificed his life so they could have the data to reach that stage and fight the D-Reaper."

The two boys stood awkwardly. "So, what was he?"

Alice looked at him in the eye and answered. "Dobermon."

Dracomon just about fell backward in shock. "Dobermon! You mean that that idiot Ezekiel's partner was with _you_?"

"Uh, Dracomon, I don't think it was the same Dobermon," Nathan corrected him.

"That's not what I meant."

"There's another?" Alice smiled a bit. "Do you want some tea?"

"Eh, I prefer mine iced," Nathan responded. Then Alice got up and grabbed some from the fridge. "Oh, cool."

"It's the sweetest tea you can find."

"Uh, might as well have some," Steven said, sitting down. "So, whatcha reading?"

"Pride and Prejudice. I've been going through a Jane Austin phase recently. I met a Tamer from Britain so… I don't know. I just felt like reading it."

"Wait… you met a Tamer other than us and the people in Japan?" Nathan asked.

Alice nodded, pouring iced tea. "Yes. Would you like a lemon? By the way, my parents will be home in less than an hour. I'm surprised you came here so quickly."  
"Yeah? So, what can you tell us about this British guy?" Nathan asked.

"His name is Ricardo Sanchez."

"Sounds Mexican," Steven commented.

"Maybe he can make us burritos," Dracomon commented, practically drooling.

"He's Colombian, actually" Alice said.

"Uh, what do Colombians eat?" the miniature dragon asked.

Nathan couldn't answer. "Beats me."

"So, would you like to meet him?" Alice asked the group.

"Uh, yeah. Wait, he's here?" Nathan inquired.

"No, he's in London right now, but he can come here whenever he likes." Alice got up and headed out of the kitchen. "You can come with me if you'd like."

Nathan, Steven and their Digimon followed. Alice started up the old family desktop computer and loaded an instant messenger program. She then clicked on one of the screen names and started a conversation.

**AMcCoyDoberman**: Hello, Ricardo

**NotMontalban90**: Hey, Alice!

**AMcCoyDoberman**: I have Siegfried and Roy over at my house.

**NotMontalban90**: Okay, just a second…

"Siegfried and Roy?" Nathan inquired.

"Code for Tamers. Ricardo's paranoid," Alice responded. Suddenly, what looked like a bunch of paper appeared around a single point, expanding. A blond-haired man with a mask on his face and a purple scarf covering his head appeared. He was wearing a cloak and appeared to have a third eye. Nathan knew he was a Digimon, but couldn't identify the species because he had never seen it before.

He checked his digivice: Baalmon, Ultimate Level, Virus Attribute. "Baalmon? Never heard of him," Nathan said.

"There are many Digimon you have never heard of," Baalmon told him. "Now… to take you someplace safe. Hold tight."  
"You never said he could reach the Ultimate Level, Alice," Steven said.

"You never asked." Baalmon wrapped his cloak around the three children and two Digimon and then disappeared the way he came there.

* * *

**Oxnard, California**

Diego was playing some arcade games with a few of his friends when he received a phone call. They were just about to go in for a game of laser tag, too. "Hello," he greeted upon opening the phone.

"Hey, Diego, this is Jake."

"Oh, hey. Uh, what's up?"

_ "No questions asked, you're going to have to get out of the amusement park you're in. There are Somnus agents coming right now."_

"Huh?" Diego was confused. Somnus was supposed to be the good guys. "Gaomon!" the Digimon appeared quickly.

"Hey, Diego, what's going on?" Diego's Chicano friend asked.

Diego spoke into the phone again, "Jake, how do you know all this? And they're Somnus, our allies."

_"Not this branch of Somnus."_

Diego's eyes widened as he saw a pair of Somnus agents at the exit, various arcade machines along the way. The two moved towards Diego and Gaomon. "We are Somnus. You have a partner Digimon and should therefore come with us since he's a potential threat."

Diego looked at the pair. "I'll talk to you later," he told Jake before hanging up the phone. "I work for Somnus already."

The one that spoke gave out a humph. "I find _that_ hard to believe."

"Vegas branch under Johnny Beckenstein. I'm part of a team of Tamers."

"When was Beckenstein authorized for such a project? Did the anti-Digimon organizations ever contact him?"

Diego felt some sweat crawl down his face. "If you want, you can talk to him about it." He held out the phone.

"No, that won't be necessary as we don't answer to him. You will come with us, Tamer."

Diego glared at the duo. He knew they were in league with the Anti-Digimon organizations and there was no way he was going with them. "No."

"Unfortunately, Diego, you have no choice in the matter."

Once the agent finished speaking, Diego's friends started yelling at them. "Who says he has to go with you guys, huh?" A blond-haired guy asked.

"Yeah, what did he do wrong?" a black kid asked.

"This is none of your concern," the second agent told them. "Stay out of it!"

"Make us," Diego's Chicano friend told them. When the first agent tried to make a move for Diego, his friends blocked both him and the second agent. "Make a run for it, man! We got you covered." Diego nodded and then ran off with Gaomon, running out the exit and onto the street.

"What should we do, Diego?" Gaomon asked.

"Let me call someone." Diego was about to call Jake back when the goatee-wearing blond appeared right in front of him, driving in a red convertible and sporting sunglasses. Something about the whole situation made Diego extremely uncomfortable, but there wasn't really anything to do other than attempting to head back to Vegas. Yet, the temperatures were far too high to be doing that.

"Get in, now!" Diego jumped in the front seat and Gaomon ended up on his lap.

"So, how much do you know?"

"A lot, we don't have much time. I've got to get you somewhere safe, Diego."

"How do I know you're not working for the enemy? It's obvious you were spying on me or something."

The convertible took off. "You don't. Now, listen here, I'm going to take you somewhere safe." Jake drove him for miles.

"So, who are you working for? I take it you're not really an investor."

"I actually am. That much is true. I never actually lied to you about anything except my name since I go by a pseudonym. As it is, you wouldn't believe my real identity anyway."

"Try me."

"I'm not going to take that risk."

"Does Eric know who you are?"

"Not really. We've got pretty similar circumstances, though."

"Yeah?"

"We're both not from this world. Eric comes from World 18 and I come from World 29. We're not the only ones, either. There are at least two others, Ryo Akiyama who's from World 3 and someone I'd rather not mention from World 6."

"What world are we in right now?"

"World 4. You actually exist in most of the alternate realities I've been to, to be honest. Strangely enough, in most of those worlds you have cousins that aren't in this one."

Diego chuckled at that one. "Reminds me of an episode of Star Trek… So what's with the world names?"

"Well, it's complicated. Beings from each world have a phase variance that's barely detectable. This one has a phase variance of four. Ryo Akiyama's world, also known as the Adventure/Frontier universe had one of three."

"Why don't you want to mention one of the guys from another world by name?"

"I have my reasons. The man's the head of Somnus right now and he's the worst possible person for the position."

"The head of Somnus…" Diego thought about that for a few seconds. He had heard the name, but didn't remember it. He vaguely remembered it being Japanese, though.

"Yeah… see why I didn't want to say his name?"

"Not really. What did he do?"

Jake stopped along the side of the road. They were somewhere in between Oxnard and Lancaster. The blond stepped out of the car and pulled his seat forward, grabbing a notepad from the pouch behind the seat. Then he scribbled a few notes down, tore out a piece and then proceeded to hand it to Diego. "Read these stories. They're considered fan fiction in this world but they tell the true stories of what would be the fourth, fifth and sixth seasons in some universes. Now, I don't want you going against him, not yet, especially since he can biomerge, something you can't do. He also has artificial Digimon at his disposal that are far too strong for your Digimon to handle."

"Okay. So what now?"

Jake pressed into his left arm, causing it to expand and turn into armor laced with touch-screen interfaces. He pressed a few buttons and then grabbed onto Diego's arm. "You'll go where your friends are."

Using the advanced technology that he possessed, Jake made Diego disappear into thin air. After that, the blond got in his car and drove off.

* * *

** Poland**

Alice, Nathan, Steven and their Digimon found themselves in an old, worn out building. They couldn't figure out where they were, though when they looked out of the window, they could tell that the sun was farther along in the sky than it was in California.

"Where did you take us, Baalmon?" the blond asked.

"He took us to one of our secret hideouts," the group heard someone say in a British accent. The person who said that was coming up the stairs and had a dark complexion, showing his African ancestry quite well. He had full lip and had his head shaved and was wearing a red shirt and some black trousers. "My name is Ricardo and I am pleased to finally meet some Tamers from the United States."

"Uh, okay," Nathan responded, not quite sure what to say.

"Hey, I thought you were Colombian," Steven said.

"I am. There's a large black population in Colombia. It's the same way with Brazil and other places such as Belize and the Dominican Republic, though all to differing degrees. So, what is your name?"

"Steven, and this is Nathan. My partner's Ryudamon."

"And I'm Dracomon!"

"It's very nice to meet you all. Welcome to the hideout of the Tamers' Brigade in Poland. You see, I'm always worried about anti-Digimon groups tracking us down so I constantly seek out secluded buildings that aren't being used to serve as bases for us."

"How many Tamers do you know around the world?" Nathan inquired.

"Only about ten or so, excluding some from Japan. There are surely many more, however they can be rather hard to find. I know about three others in London, one from South Africa, one from Ireland, and three from Russia. By the way, Baalmon, you can devolve now."

The Digimon nodded and shrunk down to his rookie form, a black imp-like creature with a white face, Impmon.

"I do know of several others, though. Unfortunately, they're proving hard to reach. We Tamers are a secluded bunch. It doesn't help that there are governments out there that are either anti-Digimon or who see Digimon and their Tamers as mere resources to be exploited. Case in point, Italy and Russia both have policies of capturing anyone with a partner Digimon and using them themselves. Other countries, like my own, have better policies and simply hire Tamers to take on any Digimon that emerge in the real world."

"Yeah, that's the case with Somnus."

"From what I hear, it isn't."

"Actually, it is. My group of Tamers is hired by the Las Vegas branch to eliminate any wild Digimon that appear in our area."

"Your group must be the exception, because from what I know, a number of Tamers are being held in California and were actually captured by Somnus themselves."  
"You're lying."

"I'm afraid he's not," Nathan and Steven were surprised to see Diego just pop into existence out of thin air. The portly boy walked over to the group and joined the conversation. "I just had a run in with a pair of agents from the San Francisco branch who wanted my head for whatever reason. I don't know how they tracked me down, either. I hear part of it is because of the head of Somnus, whoever he is."

"If I may ask, how did you get here?" Ricardo asked.

"I'm having a hard time figuring that out myself."

"His signal is similar to that of a bio-emergence," Steven commented, looking at his digivice.

"My name is Diego, by the way, and I'm partnered with Gaomon," he introduced himself.

"Ricardo and my partner is Impmon."

"Steven and this is Ryudamon." The trio shook hands.

"So, I wasn't expecting to see you so soon, Nathan. On a mission for your dad?"

Nathan nodded. "Yeah, we're supposed to find you and then find some anti-Digimon group that kidnapped Marcus."

Diego's expression turned from indifference to shock. "What? You're kidding."

"No, I'm not."

"Rest assured. We're working on the issue with the anti-Digimon group. I just need word from my agent about where they are. He hasn't had a chance to contact me since infiltrating the base."

Nathan suspected the worst. He had no idea what the enemy was capable of and simply hoped that the Brigade's agent was alright. Still, he wanted to help in any way he could and he figured that the only way to do that was to become as powerful as the Brigade.

"Ricardo, I have a favor to ask you," the blond said.

"Go on," Ricardo ordered, facing Nathan.

"Can you train us so we can reach Ultimate?"

* * *

**Afghanistan**

"Here we are," Ricardo said after Baalmon teleported them. They were in the middle of what looked like a barren wasteland. There were no buildings in sight and it was only the four tamers and their digimon.

The heat was almost too much for Steven, who patted his pockets for the sun block he usually brought with him, but to no avail. He must have left it at Alice's house. Now, they were in a hot furnace without it.

"Where is here?" Nathan asked.

"And can I possibly go back to that Alice chick's place and get my sun block. I'm going to be a lobster here, you know."

"Don't worry, you'll have a chance to in a few minutes. We're in the middle of a forbidden area in Afghanistan. Believe it or not, this place actually has the highest rate of bio-emergences in the world and though they're mostly low-level ones, the further toward ground zero you go, the higher chance of encountering Ultimates."

"How'd this place get like this?" Diego asked.

"Just after Vikalarimon rampaged through Tokyo, the terrorist group Al Qaeda decided to experiment with a number of programs in order to break into the digital world and possibly get some digimon of their own. Unfortunately, that plan backfired and they ended up destroying themselves. It made the US occupation just after 9-11 quite a bit easier. Now this place is high risk and forbidden. We only found out about it through the British organization Proteus, the counterpart to Somnus and Hypnos there. Now, before we start training you to get to the Ultimate Level, have any of you actually digivolved without cards?"

The digimon each looked at their partners. Gaomon was the first to speak. "I don't believe so."

"You know, I don't remember that happening with me either," Dracomon commented.

"I did!" Ryudamon exclaimed.

"Yeah, that was pretty scary, too," Steven told them. "I remember it. We were going against a flipping Panchomon, too."

Nathan and Diego both felt their heads get covered in cold sweat. "To digivolve to Ultimate, you have to have a good enough relationship with your partner to digivolve to Champion on your own without the use of cards. That means that while you're here, you're going to have to go without any sort of Digivolution cards. Understood?"

Nathan and Diego both nodded.

"Alright, it's time to get your stuff together. Baalmon, ready to take them wherever they need to go?"

"As always," the robed Ultimate responded.

* * *

A/N: Yeah, I was watching Tamers and realized what it took for them to digivolve. I figured it would be an interesting thing for the kids in this to do, since basic card slash doesn't involve the same emotions as digivolving without it. Basically, the idea is that anyone can digivolve with a card, but to truly digivolve completely, to the Ultimate and Mega stages, they need the bond that the characters developed in the first few episodes of Tamers. Most of the Tamers in this story don't have that bond, something that will prevent them from reaching the Ultimate level if they try. Besides, it'll give Nathan and Diego a chance to make up.

Kudos to whoever can guess the identity of the head of Somnus. They're in deep crap indeed. I figured that the alternate realities aren't really explored in the show, only implied. The 'fanfic' representations of the seasons are somewhat similar to the actual seasons (as in the ones aired in our world), except there are some major differences. It's like the idea for most 02 rewrites, that our 02 is the censored version of the real thing (and in this story's reality, it is). No offence to those that liked those seasons. I kind of like Savers. Couldn't get into Xros Wars or Frontier, though. Also tried watching 02 at one point and couldn't get into that either.

Also, please review. It's kind of annoying having only three reviews for this story. Even if you don't like it. I'm always ready for feedback.


	10. Training Day

Chapter 10: Training Day

* * *

Disclaimer: Don't own Digimon. Just own the OCs.

* * *

"You found another group of Tamers? That's excellent. Where are they, in the bay area?" Johnny Beckenstein asked into the phone. He was wandering around their house and feeding a small, black digimon with yellow eyes and small ears.

_"No, they're somewhere else. I agreed not to say, though. By the way, they had some startling accusations against Somnus, not your branch but another one. Actually, I ran into Diego and he said that some of the ones from the bay area attempted to kidnap him."_

"What? I simply told a group over there to find Diego and keep watch over him, to protect him, not to arrest him or anything."

_"Yeah? Apparently they're in league with the Anti-Digimon groups over here. Diego also mentioned something about the head of Somnus also being involved somehow."_

"The head of Somnus…?" Johnny walked into his office inside the house, the small black digimon following him. "Here we go, the head of Somnus is someone who was transferred from Hypnos to help out here… Hmm… strange… It seems that he quickly climbed the corporate ladder. Some of his former superiors wound up dead in bizarre circumstances."

_"Sounds like we're going to be dealing with a real piece of work… What else has been going on lately?"_

"Shibumi confirmed the origin of those eggs we've been finding in recent bioemergences. It turns out that they may have come from a different digital world than the previous ones. Oh, and one of them hatched into a Botamon."

_"Crazy… I don't get it. Why's all this weird stuff happening right now?"_

That was a good question, and one that Beckenstein didn't have an answer for.

* * *

**Afghanistan, Monday**

Nathan and Diego were trekking along, hoping that they could get through this whole test with their partners. Thankfully, it wouldn't be too bad other than the whole 100 degree weather at noon. Then again, Vegas got that hot and they still lived there.

"Great, two miles and no sign of any digimon. I can't believe this place is restricted," Diego complained. He was ahead of Nathan by about ten feet with his partner by his side. "Will you please hurry up? Man, and I thought I was the slow one around here."

"Hey, I'm coming, I'm coming. Don't worry."

"Yeah, can't you guys just get along," Dracomon retorted.

"In case you haven't noticed, the reason I left Vegas for a while was because of Nathan and Marcus joining Somnus and cramping my style."

"I think Dracomon's right," Gaomon said.

"Great, you're on their side too?"

Gaomon's eyes narrowed. Then the blue and white dog tensed and started growling. "What's going on?"

That was when their digivices started glowing red. A geyser of data rose up out of the ground and the area was surrounded in mist. Unfortunately for the two tamers, the digital field in question was at the bottom of a cliff. "Okay, Gaomon, time to become Gaogamon so…" Diego caught himself in mid-sentence.

"Um, Diego…"

"I know. Sheesh." Diego moved to the edge of the cliff. There was no way they could fly down there using the white wings card. Both tamers were just too heavy for that. Nathan just ran past him with Dracomon behind. Diego just rolled his eyes. "Let's hurry, Gaomon," he said, running as fast as he could until he ran out of energy about halfway down. "On second thought, let's see if blondie can take care of this."

* * *

Nathan reached the digital field and entered along with Dracomon. "Okay, boy, it's time to take on whatever's in here!" The blond clenched his teeth as he looked around. It had been awhile since he had gone to a bio-emergence on his own. Come to think of it, did he ever go to one on his own?

The digimon in front of him was a skinny red wolf with a long snout, and large amounts of leather strapped to its four legs. Nathan checked his digivice for info on it.

_Fangmon, Champion Level, Data Attribute._

Data attribute… that meant that Dracomon had both a type and level disadvantage. Oh well. Nathan pulled out a card as soon as the red wolf lunged toward Dracomon. "Digi-Modify, Dark Training Manual! Digi-Modify, High-Speed plug-in A!" After that modification, Dracomon became a blur, but so did Fangmon. Nathan hoped that the situation would give his partner an advantage.

_Here's something you need to remember, _Nathan heard from Ricardo before coming to this barren wasteland, _you shouldn't force Digivolution. If you do that, something bad will happen. I actually heard of an instance of forced Digivolution involving Takato Matsuda that nearly destroyed the digital world. We can't have that._

_ I understand, _Nathan thought, searching his deck for more cards that could give Dracomon an edge. Suddenly, the two feuding digimon stopped seemingly in mid-air.

"Baby Flame!" Dracomon yelled, unleashing his attack on Fangmon's brisket. The lupine digimon recoiled from the attack, but it didn't seem to do much damage, it just charred some fur.

"Blast Coffin!" Fangmon yelled, unleashing a blast of dark energy from his mouth and causing Dracomon to fall to the ground, smoke coming from his scaly skin.

"Dracomon!" Nathan realized he needed to strategize well. It was just that most games allowed him the time to do that. He remembered how one summer, his grandfather on his mom's side taught him a number of games such as chess and poker. Back then, he could take all the time in the world. As it was, he spent the entire summer there.

Using some of the strategic ability that he developed back then, Nathan pulled out a card and slashed it. "Digi-Modify, Power Charger! Digi-Modify, Stamina Seed!"

Dracomon just pushed on his hands and flipped over, ready to face Fangmon, which he did, heading straight for the red wolf and attacking by making his horns glow and unleashing an energy blast from his mouth. "G Shurunen!" The attack hit Fangmon head-on, causing the wolf to fall to the ground and dissolve into a million pieces of data.

"Good work," Nathan complimented his partner.

"Oh, that was nothing compared to what you did."

"Hey, I didn't do any of the fighting."  
The Digital Field dissipated and Nathan walked out to find Diego sitting down, panting and reading something on his computer.

"How'd it go?" the black-haired boy asked.

"No Digivolution but I managed to beat a champion without one. This one was Fangmon."

Diego nodded. "That was the first digimon the Frontier team fought. An author's note said that an alternate version had them fighting an ultimate, Cerubumon."  
Nathan was slightly confused. "What are you reading?"

"Something called Digital Frontier. It's supposedly the story of the original digidestined and it resembles the fourth season that Eric mentioned. I do think the concept of kids turning into digimon is kind of weird though. I mean, didn't the original digidestined have silhouettes of digimon with them in the second to last episode of Adventure?"

"It's been awhile."

"So, how are you feeling, Dracomon?" Diego asked.

"Great. I showed that wolf who was boss!" the diminutive lizard exclaimed.

"Good to hear. Now, to the next area…" Diego said, the others following. "Ready to take on whatever we encounter, Gaomon?"

"Yes, mas… I mean, Diego!"

"Good. We should be digivolved by nightfall."

"Sounds like a good idea to me. Hey, isn't there supposed to be like a massive time-zone difference between here and the west coast?" Nathan asked.

"Yeah. Hmm…" Diego examined the sky. He then realized that the sun was actually far closer to setting than he expected.

"So much for getting it done by nightfall." the blond chuckled.

* * *

**California**

Marcus was still bored in the facility he was being kept. It didn't help that he was rooming with someone that was willing to kill his partner digimon, namely Ezekiel. To make matters worse, the Hispanic snored, loudly. For the most part, rooming with him actually wasn't too bad. Ezekiel mainly kept to himself, reading or searching for that Jacob McClosky guy. Marcus was starting to get an inkling that he didn't exist, since nobody knew who he was.

Strangely, though, Marcus hadn't seen the guy all morning. He was simply digging into his fifth pancake while talking with the Canadian kid from the day before.

"So, know any tamers where you were at, Davy?" Marcus asked the brown haired boy sitting across from him.

"No, not really. There were other tamers there, but they didn't want me in their group."

"What about your partner?"

Davy looked around for a second and then whispered in Marcus' ear: "Dracmon."

"Dracomon?" Marcus asked loudly.

"We're not supposed to talk about that here."

"Man, it's not like anybody's listening."

"Sure we are, Marcus," the black guy turned his head around and looked straight at the familiar brown-haired British guy from earlier. "Now, I'll go easy on you, but you should probably keep your mouth shut around the other blokes watching you."

Marcus gulped. Then he noticed the far door open and Ezekiel walk in. "Marcus, I'll need you for something."

He could only imagine what.

* * *

"So, what do you want?" Marcus asked as he walked into the library with Ezekiel. There weren't many other kids in the room. He recognized the guy that punched Ezekiel in the face the day before, the rosy-cheeked fat guy that was sitting next to Marcus at that one ceremony reading a book, a pair of girls talking, one brunette and one with red hair, and finally a couple of Mexican kids on one of the computers, one bald and one not.

"I need you to learn something for me. It will take about eight hours for you to get through this course on a foreign language."

"Foreign language? Is it Japanese?"

"Nope, it's Czech."

"Czech? When am I going to talk to somebody who speaks Czech?"

"When are you going to speak to someone who speaks Japanese?"

"Okay, so you got a point there, but here's the thing: I have no interest in learning such a language. Japan is cool 'cause it's got anime and samurai and ninjas and stuff."

"You do know that samurai and ninjas haven't been around for hundreds of years, right?"

"Hey, they exist in anime. Since when has the Czech Republic released anything like Neon Genesis Evangelion?"

"That doesn't have samurai or ninjas in it. Just put this on." Ezekiel handed Marcus some weird strap with some sort of device in the middle.

"Uh, what the heck is this and what does it do?"

"It's called a focus band. You put it on your forehead and it allows you to pay close attention to something for hours on end. I cite that as the reason I mastered both Spanish and French in such a short time."

"Yeah, right. Now French, that would be fun. I'd impress all the ladies easily, then."

"Just put it on and shut up. Actually, don't shut up, go through the eight hour course on here."

"Why don't you do it?"

"Because I'd rather study Russian. It's much more interesting and I have a Russian-speaking rival that I'll have to deal with once we get out of here." Ezekiel put the focus band and put it on Marcus' forehead, turning it on. The African-American boy would be in the same spot for more than eight hours without even noticing anything around him other than the program which would be ingrained into his mind. Ezekiel simply went off to try to find out more information on Jacob McClosky.

* * *

Marcus awoke from his stupor hungry and sore. Eight hours had passed and he felt it. From the looks of it, it was at least six in the evening, though the afternoon sun was nowhere near setting.

The boy took off the focus band and put it in his pocket. He was going to have to get revenge on Ezekiel somehow. Marcus looked around the room and didn't see anyone from earlier in the library, with one exception. Rosy-cheeked fat boy was still there, though at a different table. For the heck of it, Marcus got up and headed over to the boy's table.

"You spend a lot of time here, don't you?" The boy nodded. "You got any friends here?"

"A couple. I've only met a few I liked."

"My name is Marcus, by the way."

"Good to meet you." The kid glanced at his watch. "It's not seven yet…"

"Yeah, what are you going to do then?"

"Eat dinner. I'd rather not eat with all the others. Oh, yeah, I do have something else to do. Sorry." The guy just got up and left. Marcus rolled his eyes at the sight.

_Man, that guy's rude…_He thought. He looked around and decided to check out some of the books around the library. He opened a few of them and glanced through the pages, but none of them interested him.

Having run out of things to do, Marcus left the library, happy to leave. He proceeded to go to the cafeteria and grab food: two hamburgers and a plateful of French fries along with a number of packets of ketchup.

"That all can't be good for you," a curly-haired red-head commented, pulling off his head-phones.

"Believe me, I'm hungry. Haven't even eaten lunch." Marcus decided to just sit at the red-head's table. It was nice to actually have someone talk to him.

The red-head chuckled. "Too busy for that?"

"Oh, my roommate made me go through an entire Czech course. It was retarded."

"Sounds like it. What would be the point of learning that? Then again, it would be more useful than something like Gaelic."

"You speak Gaelic?"

"I'm from Ireland. Not that everyone that lives there speaks it, of course."

"Yeah? I'm from Vegas. You've lived here awhile, haven't you?"

The Irishman had an uneasy silence. "Get up. We'll talk about this elsewhere." The Irishman led Marcus to the boy's locker room. At the time, there was absolutely nobody changing. It still wasn't the hour when all the kids who took showers in the evening took them and there was currently nobody swimming outside save a couple of kids doing laps. "I actually live in Ireland and I haven't been to the states before a week ago. I'm just here because I'm good with accents. My name is Sean O'Farrell."

"Yeah? I never met anyone from Ireland before. That's pretty cool. What's your partner digimon?"

"Candlemon. He can digivolve into Meramon and then SkullMeramon."

"I've got Bearmon and he digivolves into Grizzlymon."

"Haven't reached the Ultimate Level, aye?" The Irish accent was starting to leak out.

"Nope. I have no idea what his Ultimate form would be."

"Well, I'll tell you this, mate, the Ultimate form is easy to reach. You just have to produce a blue card. I'm assuming you've already digivolved to champion without cards, right, lad?"

"Un, no. I haven't. Just got him to that level using cards."

Sean's eyes widened up. "Well, as soon as I find the location of all the partner digimon and call my superiors, you'll get your chance, I'm sure of it."

"I'll help you. I also made a couple more friends that should be able to help too."

"All right, lad, who are you thinking of?"

"Davy Symanski. I also ran into this fat guy… not really sure about him though."

"Davy, maybe… You're talking about the bloke with black hair, am I right?"

"Uh, yeah. Did the guy have any issues or anything?"

The green-eyed boy nodded. "Yes, the lad had a few problems, though he's not willing to open up about them. However, I do have another ally. Her name is Gwen LeFabre. I'll introduce you to her later."

* * *

**Afghanistan**

Nathan and Diego had walked for hours with only a few close calls. It seemed like there weren't really as many digimon as Ricardo said and it was in the middle of the night. Still, the duo was on the lookout.

"So, I realized I don't know you that well…" Nathan said while the group walked.

"Yeah…?" was Diego's simple response.

"Just thought I'd make some conversation. What's your favorite band?"

"Favorite band?" Diego asked, looking behind at Nathan. "U2."

"U2?"

"Don't like them?"

"No, it's not that. I've never actually listened to them. I'm not much of a fan of eighties music, though…"

"They don't sound like most eighties. To be honest, I don't know why I like them. My dad kind of got me into them."

"I'm surprised your dad didn't get you into mariachi or something."

"Mariachi? My dad's not Mexican."

"So, what are you guys, anyway?" Unfortunately, before Diego could answer, a massive shelled digimon came up out of the ground. It was a grey mollusk inside a green, spiked shell. Nathan recognized that it was a Shellmon subspecies. The mollusk shot a jet of water at the group, Nathan and Diego both got out of the way just in time, jumping in opposite directions. "Great timing."

Diego checked the holographic display on his digivice. "MoriShellmon, Champion Level, Mollusk Digimon, Data Attribute. His attacks are Pile Shell and Slamming Attack."

"Come on, Dracomon, we can take this guy!" Nathan shouted.

"Right!"

Nathan slid a card. "Digi-Modify, Strength Plug-in B!"

"Baby Flame!" Dracomon yelled out, unleashing a fireball on the mollusk in front of them. The attack simply bumped off.

"Nathan, you realize your digimon has an attribute disadvantage, right?"

"Uh, yeah, of course. That was how I defeated Fangmon. I'm getting to that." Nathan picked a card out of his deck. "Digi-Modify Dark Training Manual!"

"G Shurunen!" MoriShellmon withdrew his head into his shell again and the attack still had no effect. There was obviously only so much an attribute advantage could do. MoriShellmon retaliated by hitting Dracomon with a jet of water again, causing the miniature dragon to hit a large boulder behind him and get knocked out. "Dracomon!"

"Now for you!" MoriShellmon yelled out, aiming at Diego. "You don't seem to be doing anything! Ha!"

Diego tossed his backpack to the side to prevent his computer and his cards from being damaged. Then the stream of water hit him head on. Thankfully, there weren't any boulders for him to slam into. Still, he badly skinned his back sliding backwards. The portly boy got himself up.

"Now for the dog…" Gaomon was right in front of a rock formation, but the dog was ready strike with his boxing gloves. The mollusk aimed his shell again.

"Gaomon!" Diego yelled out, clutching his injuries. He could tell that the back of his shirt was now shredded, and feeling it, he could tell there was blood. Nathan was treating Dracomon, sliding a Stamina Seed and causing the digimon's wounds to heal up. Diego, on the other hand, noticed that he was separated from his backpack and deck box and so ran in front of his digimon. "Leave him alone!"

MoriShellmon ignored him, realizing he wasn't a threat. The mollusk aimed at him and Gaomon and fired.

That was when Diego's digivice shined.

**DIGIVOLUTION_**

"Gaomon digivolve to… Gaogamon." The blue wolf faced MoriShellmon with confidence, moving Diego out of the way and evading the stream of water easily.

"Oh, so you want to play tough, huh? Slamming Attack!" the mollusk yelled, withdrawing its head and arms into the shell and causing it to spin, aiming at Gaogamon, who jumped out of the way. "Spiral Blow!" Gaogamon yelled, attacking with a powerful vortex, buffering MoriShellmon.

"Gaogamon, attack the opening to the shell!" Diego yelled out.

"Got it. Dash Double Claw!" Gaogamon yelled out, moving at an extremely high speed, and then unleashing an x-shaped beam from his claws at the right angle. The attack struck MoriShellmon head on, causing it to come out of its shell.

"Now, attack it!"

"Gaoga Hound!" Gaogamon yelled, biting MoriShellmon in the neck. After a couple seconds, he bit through it. Then MoriShellmon disintegrated and its data flowed off.

Diego walked over to his partner, still aching. Man, I'm glad that's over.

Nathan on the other hand was fuming. _I can't believe he digivolved before I did!_

"Diego, we're going to have to find a way to treat your back," Gaogamon said. "If you all ride me, we can survey the area in case there's a town around here. Even if it's abandoned, I'm sure there will be something there that we can use."

Nathan nodded. "Sounds like a good idea to me." He sighed deeply. "Dracomon, how are you feeling?"

"Are you kidding me, I feel like I've been run over by a freight train."

"You're not the only one," Diego said, half-smiling.

The three boarded Gaogamon. From the distance, a member of the Tamer's Brigade watched on, barely visible in the shadows. "So, what now, Goblimon?" the teen asked his partner digimon in an American accent that with hints of Middle Eastern influence.

"I don't know. We still have a few hours until bedtime."

The tamer smiled, something that wasn't visible in the dark. "How about we go after the others? They might need my help in case they come across some of the natives. I think they're headed to the town that's still inhabited. Of course, I don't speak Pashto."

* * *

**California**

That night, Marcus couldn't sleep. Thankfully, he still had a fork from dinner and so, after getting redressed, he used it to open up the locked door. Looking around, there were no guards posted in the hall. He found that kind of strange, but he guessed that the owners of the facility didn't expect any of the kids to be able to sneak out.

Of course, the facility is surrounded by a barbed-wire fence so escape was nigh impossible.

Looking around, Marcus was amazed at how quiet everything was. For one thing, Ezekiel had an annoying habit of snoring, something that kept Marcus up the night before. Then again, he really didn't like the guy, for obvious reasons, and dreaded the thought of teaming up with him.

Marcus ducked behind a corner once he reached one hallway. He noticed a pair of guards hanging out there, most likely from Somnus due to their black suits. The two looked completely bored out of their skulls, guarding whatever they were guarding. Marcus didn't see any doors down that hallway.

Then it opened. There was a hidden passageway against the wall, one that Marcus wouldn't have guessed was there. Out came a group of anti-digimon people, including Holmes and a couple others that Marcus couldn't place. _That has to be where they keep the digimon…_

"So, you have no idea how the partnership is formed?" One of the anti-digimon people, apparently the head honcho, said. In the dark, Marcus couldn't make the man out, though from his snotty demeanor, he automatically didn't like him.

"None," Holmes said, "The digivices don't seem to have anything to do with it and we can't find anything on the digimon."

"And you tried killing the digimon?"

"We killed one of them. It caused psychosis in the human partner."

"Hmm… Perhaps the answer lies in the brain. Yes, that's it. I would suggest attempting a lobotomy on one of them." Marcus listened on in confusion, wondering what a lobotomy was and realizing it probably wasn't good.

"Are you insane? These are children we're talking about!"

"Sometimes sacrifices have to be made. I'll move along now."

Marcus watched the group go away, leaving only the two guards and the hidden doorway. Marcus remembered seeing two guards here during the daytime, but didn't think anything of it. Now, though, it makes sense.

He just needed a dictionary to figure out what the heck a lobotomy was. Because of this, he snuck on over to the library. Interestingly enough, there was a light on in the reading room. This piqued his curiosity and so he wandered into the room, almost startling the heavy kid with the rosy cheeks half to death. It seemed like he wasn't the only one that couldn't sleep.

"Oh, hi, you spend a lot of time in here, don't you?"

"I guess. There's not much to do here. I almost thought you were one of the guards."

"Nope, I'm not." Marcus plopped a giant dictionary he found in the library on the table. It was out in the open for easy browsing anyway so Marcus could pick it up without having to actually see it. He opened it up to the L section and opened his mouth in horror when he read the definition of lobotomy. "Oh, man, we've gotta get out of here."

"What's going on?"

"They plan on taking parts of our brains out to see if our link with our digimon gets severed."

The kid looked on disbelieving. "Please tell me that's a joke."

"No man, they were talking about giving us lobotomies and that's what one is." The kid was visibly shaking. "So, what's your name, anyway?"

"Uh, Kenneth."

"I'm Marcus. What about your partner?"

Kenneth thought for a second. "Patamon."

Marcus had a weird inkling about something so he asked the kid: "Can I see your wallet for just a second?"

Kenneth was slightly shocked by the request, but he pulled out the old brown leather wallet he had anyway and passed it to him. Marcus eyed the school ID card. "So, what do you go by? You killed Kenny, Barbie and Ken, what?"

"Kenny, I guess. Wait, you're not mad?"

"Why would I be mad? We've got the same enemy and I wouldn't want him knowing who I was either."

* * *

**Nevada**

In downtown Las Vegas, Marika and Claire finally reach the point of the latest bioemergence only to find it empty, no fog, no digital field. Marika looked around the area, pondering for a little bit.

Then she told Claire and the partner digimon her deduction. "There's another Tamer."

* * *

A/N: Sorry it took so long getting this chapter out. I've been having some problems lately and I might be moving, so that's been getting in the way of this.

The whole 'True versions of seasons 4, 5 and 6' are inspired by the numerous remakes of said seasons. Basically it follows a what-if scenario, as in what if the seasons we're getting aren't how they actually happened. Well, the main parts of the seasons really happened, but there was a lot taken out (more character development for Masaru and Yoshino, more plot progression in Xros Wars, the other kids actually getting their fusion evolutions in Frontier, various fan theories actually turning out to be true, that sort of thing).

By the way, in order to clear up any confusion: Marcus is in no way fluent in Czech. He hasn't even used it yet (and there is a use). It's actually the same with Ezekiel and French and Spanish. He's basically just a bunch of hot air.


	11. Lightning Strike

Chapter 11: Lightning Strike

* * *

Disclaimer: Don't own Digimon, just the OCs.

* * *

"Who do you think it was?" Claire asked as they surveyed the area. Lunamon was looking around as well, trying to find evidence of the new tamer.

"We have no way of knowing. There's nothing that could possibly give away the identity of this person."

"Maybe if we thought about it…"

"Speculation is pointless. The tamer either came by and had their digimon load the data of whatever digimon appeared here or…"

"Or, what? Simply took the egg?"

"That's a possibility. But why? It wouldn't make any sense."

"Maybe the person's trying to get together more Tamers."

"Maybe. Plotmon, did you recognize the digimon we saw when Beckenstein sent a tracer after it?"

"No, it didn't look like any species I've ever seen."

"I agree. It looked almost as if Guilmon and Veemon had a baby."  
"Did you know about my species before meeting me?" Lunamon asked.

"To be honest, no. This proves there are many unknown digimon out there."

* * *

**London, England, the previous morning…**

The young man going up the elevator in the apartment building had brown hair and blue eyes, fairly light skin, a beak-like nose and freckles across his face. His clothing was a light-blue shirt underneath a leather jacket and a pair of gray trousers with far too many pockets. He had an orange digivice with a purple ring around the screen and next to him was a small, purple, beetle-like digimon.

He quickly got off the elevator, his partner digimon close behind, and walked to the door of the apartment where the tamer he wanted to talk to lived. Unfortunately, the tamer's sister, a sixteen-year-old black girl with long, wavy hair was the one that answered. "[Oh, great, it's another one of his friends]," the girl said in Spanish before speaking in English with a British accent. "Ricardo's just inside. I'm not sure if he'll be available, though, since one of his friends from America is here."

"I called him last night saying I will come," the boy responded in heavily accented English.

"Okay, come on in I guess." The girl led him through the almost immaculate house that was decorated with various pictures and mostly earth paint colors, and took him to the room her brother lived in, which wasn't nearly as well-kept as the rest of the house. The most normal thing about the bedroom was the bed in the far corner against the right wall and the dresser against the left wall. Other than that, there were numerous photographs on the wall, all linked in webs. Ricardo was talking to Steven about the various operations the Tamer's Brigade had been undergoing when the duo walked in. Ricardo met the dark-haired boy with a smile and introduced Steven to him.

"Dmitri, this is Steven, Steven, Dmitri."

"It a pleasure to meet you," Dmitri replied. "And this my partner, KoKabuterimon."

"KoKabuterimon, huh?" Steven asked while shaking Dmitri's hand. "That's an unusual digimon."

"True, it is. So, where are you from?"

"Russia."

"Yeah, Dmitri's one of the Russian Tamers we rescued a few months ago."

"You not British, are you?" Dmitri asked Steven.

"Nope, I'm American. To tell you the truth, I've never been to another country until Ricky's partner took me someplace the other day."

Dmitri nodded in understanding. "I have a cousin that lives in America. We haven't seen him in years, though."

"Yeah, it's a pretty big country."

"That's what I know. You don't happen to live in New Mexico, do you?"

"No, you're one state off. I was born in Connecticut and live in Colorado. I did meet a guy from there the other day; I believe his name was Cody."

"I don't know him."

"That's the only guy I know from New Mexico. I think my friend Nate was born in Massachusetts and my friend Broc was born in Denver."

Dmitri simply nodded. "Yes, my cousin taught me some English, just to say hello and have small talk. He went to Russia for a little bit a few years ago. He was raised speaking Russian."

"Yeah, I definitely don't know who he is. As far as I know, Nate's monolingual and his dad probably doesn't speak any other language or anything. Don't know anything about his mom. Broc's the same way. So, when are we going to find my bro?"

"Again, we need to find the location of that compound," Ricardo said, "We have no way of knowing where it is until my agent there responds."

"What if he doesn't?"

"I don't know. We attempted to interrogate a Somnus agent who tried to kidnap one of us one time… it didn't work. He had no idea other than that he was supposed to call some number and meet someone. We tried setting up a trap that way, but the person that we were supposed to meet didn't show. Sending an agent of the Brigade was a last resort."

"Let's just hope that it works and that he didn't get his brain sucked out by these guys."

"Those blokes don't know what they're dealing with. His partner digimon is in a safe spot, waiting until we get the call. Until then, we just have to train. So, Dmitri, you want to join the brigade?"

Dmitri nodded. "I figured it would be the best way to make a difference."

Ricardo agreed and pulled out a blue card. "Now, let's train." He slid the card, creating a Baalmon that had to crouch in order to fit in the room. The digimon then teleported them all out along with their partner digimon."

* * *

**Pyongyang, Korea**

It turns out that Al Qaeda wasn't the only group that attempted experiments involving the digital world that backfired. In fact, North Korean spies were the ones that gave the Islamic militants the information on the digital world in the first place. It didn't take long for the whole program to blow up in their faces as a squad of Vilemon came in through a dimensional rift caused by an experiment that the heads of state were watching and slaughtered everyone in reach. Even the Dictator of North Korea was there. The resulting backlash, causing a slew of Champion and Ultimate level digimon to come out of the hole, also caused South Korea to invade the north out of necessity. Now the country was united again, but at a horrible cost.

After getting whatever civilians they could out of the capital, the government in Seoul surrounded the city with landmines and declared it a no-man's land. Never mind that it was mainly the center of the city that was invaded. The Burmese, the Iranians, the Iraqis and numerous other developing nations also received the information from the North Koreans for such projects, but thankfully, most of them had sense to actually dismantle their programs. The ones that didn't ended up paying the consequences.

Steven had already had that talk the night before. It was near dark in Korea, though, which felt strange to the red-head. "So, what are we going to do?"

"Training. Most of the digimon in the area aren't very nice," the Colombian tamer commented, adjusting his sunglasses slightly. "This area has the highest rate of Ultimate-level bioemergences.

"So, have you ever used this teleportation feature to visit the guys in Japan?"

"A couple times, though it was real brief. It doesn't help that none of them speak English except for Jian Liang and Ruki.

"What is the mission?" Dmitri asked.

"Simple, we'll be rescuing some hostages. There's a family that didn't get out of this city in time and has been trapped here for months."

"That's sounds pretty scary," Steven commented.

"I know. Ready?" Steven and Dmitri both nodded along with their digimon. "All right, you should digivolve."

"Card Slash! Super Evolution Plug-in S!"

"Ryudamon digivolve to… Ginryumon!

"KoKabuterimon digivolve to… Blitzmon!"

Blitzmon was a large, armored humanoid digimon with blue and yellow armor. His shoulder pads, helmet and parts of his legs and chest were blue while the rest of his chest, parts of his arms and legs where yellow. In addition, there was gray armor in a few spots on his arms and chest. He also had a large horn on top, much like his lower form of KoKabuterimon.

Baalmon simply stayed at his level.

Then the team set forth.

It took awhile, but they reached the place where the hostages were being held. It was eerily quiet walking down the empty streets of Pyongyang, since absolutely no one was allowed there. Soon, they reached a building.

"This is it," Ricardo said. They're supposed to be on the top floor. Baalmon?"

Baalmon didn't respond, instead reacting to what Ricardo said and running up the walls. The digimon then broke into the side of the walls, and tore them off, throwing the piece of concrete down to the street below but at a comfortable distance from the Tamers. In response, the enemy digimon inside the building returned gunfire. Baalmon quickly disappeared and then the digimon, a squad of Commandramon, were all taken out. Baalmon then landed on the ground and picked up the Tamers and remaining digimon.

"Okay, I'm kind of curious. How come this guy didn't just bring us straight here?" Steven asked.

"He can't teleport to a place he hasn't been to. We have been to Korea in the past so that isn't a problem. That and we take pictures of wherever we go."

"Oh, okay. So you guys went to Afghanistan on your own?"

"No," Baalmon finally spoke. "I went by myself in the guise of a US intelligence officer. That was how I came here as well. When I found a good spot to teleport to, I just went back to England, grabbed Ricardo and took him there so he could snap photographs."

"Exactly," Ricardo said, supporting his partner, "You remember the pictures on the walls of my room, don't you?" Steven nodded. Dmitri moved on ahead, Blitzmon's bulk barely being supported on the concrete. However, as they turned the corner, Blitzmon jumped in front of his Tamer and took a few knives head on, sparking with electricity.

"Sealsdramon…" Ricardo indicated, his eyes narrowing with spite. He had encountered quite a few of the vicious champions in the past, so he knew what they were like.

"Let me get these guys. Ginryumon!"  
"Got it!" Ginryumon ran around the corner and unleashed an attack. "Metal Armor Blade!" The dragon created a spear with his mouth and shot it forward, piercing the armor of several of the attacking Sealsdramon at once like a shish cabob. At the same time, Blitzmon had recovered from his injuries enough to strike a finishing blow to the squad. "Mjolnir Thunder!" he shouted, striking the ground with lightning and electrocuting the enemy, causing them to disintegrate.

"Good job," Ricardo commended.

"Eh, it was nothing. I'm sure Baalmon could have defeated them instantly." Dmitri nodded in agreement.

Baalmon headed forward. "The hostages are this way. At the same time, I sense an Ultimate level."

"You can take him on, right?" Steven asked.

"I should be able to… Actually, there are two of them."

"So prepare yourselves," Ricardo warned.

The team walked down the hall, Baalmon attempting to keep guard. Then, as soon as Baalmon turned the other way, he got struck with water.

"How good of you to come to the party…" The enemy digimon was one that Steven definitely didn't recognize. It was a skinny digimon with a beak on its face and a small amount of gray hair underneath what looked like a yarmulke. It was wearing a blue cape and had baggy dark blue pants on. On top of that, it was holding a massive weapon, a sort of staff with a crescent-shaped blade on one end and a type of gun barrel on the other end that it held with its long, skinny arms. Steven's digivice identified it as Sagomon, Ultimate Level, Virus Attribute.

When Baalmon got up, he steadied his knife and charged forward. Sagomon responded by blocking with the crescent blade on its staff. The two struck each other for a few seconds.

"Blitzmon, you should do something to help," Dmitri told his digimon.

"Same with you, Ginryumon!" Steven exclaimed.

Blitzmon nodded and moved forward, charging his hands with lightning. "Thor's Hammer!" he yelled, attacking Sogamon head on. The digimon was shocked by the attack since it had an element disadvantage, but wasn't damaged too much, though the distraction gave Baalmon the opportunity needed to strike him with his sword, slicing across his stomach and causing data to spray out.

Then Blitzmon attacked again, gathering lightning with the horn on his head and ramming Sogamon in the gut, all while shouting "Thunder Toppler!" That attack electrocuted Sogamon and caused him to disintegrate. Steven and Dmitri were surprised that the battle went so well.

"Baalmon…" Ricardo muttered. His partner digimon knew what to do without him saying and responded with a simple nod. Then the digimon created a disguise for himself that made him look like Sagomon.

"So, what is he doing?" Ginryumon asked.

"I think he's changing form to trick the Ultimate that's with the hostages," Steven replied.

"That's exactly what I'm doing," Ricardo confirmed. "You see, there's a chance that if the digimon finds out that his partner was defeated, he'll kill the hostages." This caused a look of fear to come on Steven's face as Baalmon went through the door to the next room.

"What we do now?" Dmitri asked.

Ricardo gestured towards the door to the room next to where the hostages were and the two other tamers followed him. Then they waited and after a couple seconds, the wall came in and Baalmon was attacking a small, purple, ball-like digimon with black eyes and a sword. Steven recognized it as it came crashing through but checked his digivice just to make sure. "Tekkamon, Ultimate Level, Virus Attribute."

"Steven, you go take the hostages out of this building while Dmitri and I take on Tekkamon," Ricardo ordered.

"Alright, got it!" Steven exclaimed, around the hall with Ginryumon while Tekkamon, Baalmon and Blitzmon went all out. He ran to the door that the hostages were behind and motioned to them to come to him. There were five of them, two adult males, one female, and two children, both girls. It also turned out that none of them spoke any English, only Korean.

The quintet followed him out the door and then to a stairway that Steven noticed along the way. The group ran out with Ginryumon tailing them and making sure there weren't any other enemies lurking about. Then they went into the streets.

Unfortunately for them, the fight ended up leaving the building when Baalmon flew out the side of it and into another, nearby edifice, breaking a window in the process. Then came Blitzmon, who managed to prevent himself from slamming into the other building by using his arms to shield himself.

"Blitzmon!" Steven heard Dmitri yell as the Russian ran out the building. Now Tekkamon was up there, ready to stab Blitzmon with a sword. "I must help him!" Dmitri said, fumbling through his cards.

"Ginryumon, help them."

"In case you haven't noticed, I'm down here and the battle's up there!"

Blitzmon managed to tear a hole in the side of the building to give him somewhere to position himself, but was still at a massive disadvantage. Dmitri realized this and just about broke down, dropping his cards in the process.

"Dmitri! What's going one!"

"We all going to die and it my fault, can you not see?" Dmitri said.

Steven's look went from concerned to motivated. "It doesn't have to be that way. How'd you get a digimon partner anyway?"

"Simple, I created blue card and made digivice. Then I scanned all the data I could on digimon from fanfiction I read, about group of kid who went to the digital world and turned into digimon. My favorite was Blitzmon, so I scanned him. The entire story was in English, but I read every chapter. I learned many new words from it." Dmitri picked up one of his cards. "Then after that, I met partner. Unfortunately, the government got us. The rest is history. There no way I want anyone to suffer the same fate as us. So I join the Tamers' Brigade!" The card he was touching turned blue, much to Steven's astonishment. He didn't know what was going to happen next. Now though, he could only guess.

The red-head realized exactly what once he saw Dmitri sliding a blue card into his digivice. All he remembered of Impmon becoming Baalmon was that Ricardo scanned a special card and he reached that level, but didn't think much of it, just assuming that it was something from the card game. "[Card Slash! Matrix Evolution!]" he yelled out in his native Russian, causing his digivice to shine and then shoot forth light into the air. The light then hit Blitzmon and the blue beetle changed form into what looked like him crossed with a tank with a very similar color scheme.

Much like Blitzmon, Steven didn't recognize this digimon, so he used his digivice to view it. _Bolgmon, Ultimate Level, Variable Attribute. His attacks are Ultimate Thunder and Electron Cannon._

"[Now, Bolgmon!]" Dmitri yelled and the beetle attacked, yelling out "Ultimate Thunder" and launching lightning shaped like a pair of balls attached to each other. Unfortunately, the attack missed.

"[Card Slash! High-speed plug-in B!]" Bolgmon was now far faster than he was before and when Tekkamon attacked him, unleashing a sword blast and then aiming at him with his skull. Bolgmon's speed allowed him to grab onto Tekkamon's head and hold him up to his cannon.

"Electron Cannon!" he yelled, engulfing the enemy digimon with a blast and disintegrating it.

"Thank you," Dmitri told Steven.

"No problem. That's what I like to do, cheer everyone up, even if I've got plenty of problems myself." Then Steven noticed something amiss. "Uh, where's Ricardo and all the hostages. On the other hand, where's Baalmon?"

"He took the hostages to safe place while we distracted Tekkamon." Bolgmon then came down from the building and Baalmon reappeared with Ricardo.

"Good work. It's good to finally have a Tamer at the Ultimate level before he actually joins the Brigade."  
Steven smiled. "It must be. Now, when can I join?"

Ricardo looked him in the eye. "I believe that you can join as soon as you want to. Just keep in mind that you will have to train with another Tamer until you can reach the Ultimate Level on your own. I have just the person in mind, too. He's kind of a loner."

Steven nodded his head. "Alright. How soon can I meet him?"

* * *

**Poland**

Steven didn't know what to expect when the brigade met together. There were five of them, six including Dmitri, each from a different part of the world. That Steven could sit on such a meeting was an enormous privilege.

"I would like to introduce you to Steven McClosky and Dmitri Tartakovsky. These two were instrumental in helping with the hostage situation in Pyongyang," Ricardo said, glowingly. "Now I would like to introduce you to the Brigade. This is Gregor Schröder, from Germany," he pointed to a tall, spiky brown-haired guy with brown eyes, a pointed skin and a muscular frame.

"This is Arnold De Haven from Australia." Arnold was a short, guy with brown hair that covered one eye and in turn was covered by a black beanie. He had blue eyes and was wearing a white shirt and black trousers.

"Over here you have Olivia Bentley, from Manchester, England." Olivia had blond hair as well along with blue eyes. Her complexion was quite possibly the palest in the room, too.

"And that is…" Ricardo was just about to name off the final tamer, a black-haired boy from Argentina when a red-haired girl just barged in, followed by a yellow fox standing on its hind legs. The girl had her hair down and looked as if she had just woken up. That didn't mean that she wasn't wearing her normal clothes: a white shirt with a blue heart on it and a pair of blue-jeans.

"Sorry I'm late. Could you guys possibly choose a better time for a meeting than the middle of the night?"

"This is Ruki Makino from Japan and her partner is Renamon. You may remember her from the D-Reaper invasion," Ricardo explained.

"You know, this is an official meeting of the Tamer's brigade and last time I checked, you weren't a member," Gregor said. The brown-haired boy spoke in an American accent, surprisingly.

"Well, excuse me. Last time I checked, Ricardo told me that I could come. Besides, he invited me to this meeting." Violet eyes met Ricardo's brown ones. "So, how about you make me a member already. I could kick this guy off the council in a heartbeat."

"I thought you didn't want to be a member," Ricardo said.

"I figured that Asia could use better representation than this, especially if you want to get that one renegade tracked down."

"Renegade?" Steven inquired.

"Yes, there's a Tamer that's been causing all sorts of havoc lately. All we know about him is that his partner is a Keramon. It's quite messy, actually."

Steven nodded and smiled. "I'm sure we can beat him."

"That is, if we can find him. Of course, we still need to go through and check each city for Tamers. Now that the summer holidays are upon us, we can do just that. So, now we have Dmitri as a new recruit along with Steven. And all in favor of Ruki being a part of the council raise your hand." Everyone raised there's except for Gregor, who opposed, along with Dmitri and Steven, who didn't know whether they were supposed to vote or not. They actually weren't supposed to, so it was a good move on their parts.

"That settles it. Ruki Makino is now on the council. And another thing: Steven hasn't reached the Ultimate stage yet. Gregor, would you do the honors of training him?"  
"Uh, I don't work with nobody, I'm sorry."

"All in favor, raise their hand…"

Before the others could raise their hands, Gregor interrupted. "Okay, okay, I'll do it. Sheesh. Just don't expect me to work with him afterwards."

"Excellent. And yet another thing: there are two tamers training in Afghanistan right now while Ibrahim is monitoring them. If anyone would like to volunteer to train them, raise their hand." The guy from Argentina, apparently named Eduardo Argyrós raised his hand along with the blond from Australia, Arnold. "Well, that settles everything for now. Remember, we need to start looking for other tamers. Also, Sean is still on his mission in California and may be calling for assistance any day now, so be prepared. Meeting adjourned."

* * *

A/N: Don't worry about remembering the characters at the end of the chapter. For the most part, they don't do much in this fic. In fact, with the exception of Gregor, I pretty much thought of them while writing this chapter.

Don't worry, things'll get back to Vegas soon, though even the next mini-arc won't take place entirely in the town due to the events that unfold real soon.


End file.
